In a Grievance presented to parliament, Member for Roe and Deputy Leader of The Nationals WA, Peter Rundle MLA, called for the Cook Government to support the Esperance community by agreeing to install a life-saving Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine at the Esperance Health Campus.
Mr Rundle said that the Esperance community had indicated support to enable the purchase of the machine and now needed the State Government to commit to housing and operating it.
“The medical fraternity and the general community in Esperance are calling for the installing of MRI equipment, and, as is the case with many issues in regional areas, the community has come up with a solution,” he said.
Putting its money where its mouth is, the community has committed to raising the cost of the machine.
“Local businesses and farmers are prepared to invest because they know how much state-of-the-art diagnostic imagining would benefit their community,” Mr Rundle said.
Mr Rundle said that the community was asking the Government for a commitment to house and run the machine.
He said that a conservative estimate for the number of Patient Assisted Travel Scheme (PATS) funded referrals for MRI services is around 4-5 scans per week, around 200-250 a year.
“It is estimated that this would double if a machine were available locally, with patients choosing to access health services when they are closer. Consequently, outcomes will be better,” Mr Rundle said.
“The benefits for patients not to have to travel vast distances for the imaging hardly needs to be highlighted, but for people travelling from Esperance to Perth, Kalgoorlie or Albany, there are imposts in the form of transport, accommodation, and delays to treatment while they wait for scan appointments,” he said.
Mr Rundle said PATS will not begin to cover the financial outlay for this kind of treatment.
“There’s not enough funding available for essential services in the regional areas because the people who live there apparently don’t deserve the same level of service that city people take for granted,” Mr Rundle said.
Mr Rundle called for the State Government to play its part in ending the discrimination regional people experienced when trying to access health care.
“The natural place for the MRI would be the Esperance Health Campus,” Mr Rundle said.
“All that is needed is for the Cook Government to do its bit, and divert money allocated to a project people don’t want, like the $217 million Burswood racetrack, to something people do want: better health outcomes for their communities.”