05/09/2025
✅On Monday the 25th of August, Mareeba & Communities Family Healthcare Chair, Ross Cardillo, attended the Parliamentary Friends of Rural Health event, hosted by our grant partners the National Rural Health Association, to support the launch of their new report, The Forgotten Health Spend: A Report on the Expenditure Deficit in Rural Australia.
🛑The report reveals a concerning gap: rural Australians are missing out on an average of $1,073.17 in healthcare spending per person every year.
📢Our Chair, Ross Cardillo shared Mareeba’s story of how local collaboration, led by Mareeba and Communities Family Healthcare in partnership with the National Rural Health Alliance, is building a sustainable model of care that puts people, place and purpose at the centre.
🔥By empowering communities to co-design services that reflect local needs and by addressing workforce challenges head-on, projects like PRIM-HS offer real, practical solutions to long-standing rural health inequities.
🎯Pictured: Chair Ross Cardillo and NRHA CEO Susi Tegen as they brought the community’s voice to Canberra. Ross shared insights from Mareeba, highlighting what this shortfall means on the ground and how the local community is working together to close the gap.
Check out the full report at: https://www.ruralhealth.org.au/the-forgotten-health-spend-report/
