Call for change to health service budget

Latrobe Community Health Service is calling for the State Government to reconsider a "little over 15 per cent" budget cut for community health services.

LCHS chief executive officer Ben Leigh said he received a phone call notifying him of the impending cut on Friday, April 14.

The cuts are expected to impact LCHS staffing and services. Currently, the organisation employs more than 1500 people and operates from 70 sites across regional Victoria, Melbourne, and Sydney.

"At this stage, we are really appealing to the Victorian Government to reconsider their decision," Mr Leigh said.

"We've had to brief our staff, and obviously they are very concerned."

Mr Leigh said the funding cut would potentially impact LCHS' ability to retain the "highly-skilled" staff they currently have.

Concerns also lie in the impacts of budget cuts on the delivery of services, particularly in rural areas where health outcomes for residents are historically worse than in metropolitan areas.

"We know in rural areas we face many, many health challenges, many of them caused by lifestyle."

"To lose this sort of resource would be catastrophic in a rural area."

LCHS currently delivers more than 100 different services – from general practice (GP), nursing, allied health, dental, counselling and psychology, to gambling support, alcohol and drug treatment, NDIS local area coordination, aged care services, and carer support.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, LCHS and similar community health services played a vital role in community outreach, outreach to vulnerable community groups and vaccination efforts.

Mr Leigh said LCHS had not evaluated which services will be impacted.

"We are looking at over $170,000, it's going to be a big impact."

"All of the community health services are appealing to government and their local leaders to really re-consider this funding cut."

"It's not the right fund, it's not the right funding, we are really asking them to do a U-turn on this."

"No government will ever be criticised for listening to their community."

In early April, LCHS joined 24 other registered independent community health services in Victoria to call for greater recognition and funding for community health from state and federal decision makers in a campaign called "Community Health First".

The campaign has four key asks of the government, including an increase in core funding to registered independent community health services by at least 20 percent, cement registered independent community health services as the "partner of choice" for primary care and community-based health initiatives, immediately prioritise fair and sustainable investment in community health infrastructure and workforce development, and recognise registered community health services in the National Health Agreement.