MEDICAL patients will receive big benefits from a major improvement to health services for Dubbo and remote centres in the region. They are welcome if long overdue.
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Our area now has a team of 29 allied health specialists who travel to rural and remote communities.
It includes dieticians, diabetes educators, paediatric occupational therapists, speech therapists and primary health care nurses.
Based at Dubbo, they will cover more than 30 towns within three hours' drive of the city and partner with local GPs.
They are taking health care to people who previously had to travel a long way to get treatment. They provide personal treatment alternated with Telehealth sessions. They also provide cancer screening services.
This Primary Health Services program will ease the burden of patients and families far away from the medical support city dwellers take for granted. It will spare many chronically ill people the ordeal of inconvenient travel and relatively expensive overnight stays.
The program is operated by Marathon Health for the Western NSW Primary Health Network.
The major upgrade of the Dubbo Hospital will bring key medical support closer to home. Marathon's program will take treatment options to a doctor near you.
It is reminiscent of the "good old days" when doctors did house calls to treat the sick. Now it is town calls.
The program is a win for residents. There is always room for improvement but this is a good start.