A former South Australian mid-north GP has been re-elected chairman of the National Rural Health Alliance.
Tim Kelly is now the chief executive of the Adelaide to Outback GP Training Program.
The Alliance is made up of 37 different bodies that cover all aspects of regional and rural health care, and aims to lobby governments.
He says sometimes regional statistics are overlooked – an issue the Alliance is seeking to fix.
“Often rural and remote contexts are forgotten in data because it doesn’t form a large enough pool,” he said.
“So we like to make sure where we can work with the Australian Bureau of Statistics or the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to break down data across rural and remote contexts, and work out exactly what influence policies are having or what outcomes are being achieved.”
He says its influence can often depend on the political climate but a recent visit to Canberra filled him with some confidence.
“I think we’re well received and I have to say, we got to Parliament House – we were the first group through the door after the security arrangements were tightened up,” he said.
“We were concerned actually that we might not be able to get in but the reception we received, and the efforts that the political staffers from all the offices went to actually escort us around, which is what they had to do for all the visits, was amazing actually.”