Regional allied health workers from across north-east Victoria and beyond are heading to Canberra this weekend, hoping to push the Federal Government to pay more attention to the sector.
The peak body, Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health is holding its biannual summit.
Chief executive Rod Wellington spent his early years working in Numurkah.
He said the availability of services was a major issue, particularly in sectors like aged care.
“There is a waiting list for aged care beds, so people generally of that particular community, of what 3,500, 4,000 people, may have to move out of that community, they may have to go to Cobram for argument’s sake,” he said.
“Well that’s a hard call when you may have lived in that community for 70 years.”
Mr Wellington said there needed to be more data on where workers were, to help address staff shortages across rural and regional Australia.
“We need the Government to fund a national allied health workforce database,” he said.
“Allied health covers approximately 45 different professions.
“We don’t know who is practising where, so therefore it’s very, very difficult to identify where the workforce gaps are.”