It has been two years since the State Government made the announcement in November 2020 for $7.5 million for a rehabilitation centre in Dubbo.
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The most recent update was that a suitable parcel of land for Dubbo's drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility has yet to be identified.
Dubbo Regional councillor Pam Wells spoke at the April, 28 council meeting about the importance of getting community consultation on the project as soon as possible.
In a chat with the Daily Liberal, Ms Wells said there were plenty of reasons why she thinks it's important to get the rehabilitation centre right; ranging from having the right model, the right location and the right way to support people with addictions.
"I'm basically speaking as me, as Pam, not as a councillor or a person from Uniting, these things do influence me but this is my input as Pam Wells," she said.
"If we don't get it right then we aren't going to have a suitable facility for people who have an addiction and need that support to heal."
The main reason Ms Wells was concerned about the lack of community consultation was because the residents are the ones impacted by the centre.
"It's important to get a community voice so we hear from them. The community are the ones impacted by people that unfortunately have an addiction, whether that's a family member or a loved one that may need that type of service to get them through the healing process," he said.
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"We should always start our consultation with the community because this is where we live and where we want our young people to grow and we want the right thing for the community as well."
Ms Wells said she thinks that herself and other community members are frustrated with the length of time it has taken to see action.
"Unfortunately COVID has had a huge impact on why things have been delayed and that's pretty much across various sectors and industry and consultation opportunities. Whilst it is frustrating I also do understand," she said.
One point that Ms Wells brought up was getting the centre right for Dubbo's Aboriginal community.
"Look we know Aboriginal people are over represented in many aspects of health...if we're having a facility where we know the statistics or percentage of people that use the facility will be a high number of Aboriginal people we need to make sure the cultural lens is applied to the model, location and thinking on how the service can best work to support Aboriginal people," she said.
"When I say that though I know that people who are not Aboriginal would benefit from an Aboriginal type facility as well, and we see that now in other cultural rehabilitation services across the state and nation."
Ms Wells said there were things they could do as a community to support and influence the way the consultations occur.
"I know the local health district has tried some consultations with different stakeholders, but I just know the community needs the voice and prior to 2020 there were community consultations getting off the ground and these were really well attended by various people across the community," she said.
"It's important the community gets to come and be a part of that conversation including the government stakeholders, such as the local health district."
Ms Wells said she doesn't know why it has taken this long to get things up and running but she was hopeful things would speed up this year.
"We are hoping for community consultations later this month," she said.
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