National Rural Health Alliance

The National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) is Australia's peak non-government organisation for rural and remote health.

The Alliance began in 1991 and was incorporated in 1993.[1] It brings together a number of disparate organisations for the common purpose of improving the health of people who live and work in Australia's non-metropolitan areas.

The Alliance as at (Feb 2014) comprises 37 Member Bodies, each of which is a national organisation. They represent health consumers, health care professionals, service providers, health educators, students and some Indigenous health organisations. The following are current members:

Mission and support

The Alliance has core operational support from the Australian (Federal) Government Department of Health. The Alliance's work has remained independent of government and is controlled and managed by its member bodies, through its Council. Current members of Council at any given time are listed on the Alliance's website.

The Alliance's interests and constituency are the communities of rural and remote Australia. Rural and remote areas are defined (arbitrarily) by the Alliance as all those places except the nine capital cities and the regional conurbations of Townsville, the Gold Coast, Newcastle, the Central Coast, Wollongong and Geelong. Australia has various formal classification systems of the geographic continuum from 'metropolitan' to 'remote', the latest and most widely used of which is the Australian Standard Geographic Classification System – Remoteness Areas (ASGC-RA).

Despite Australia's general affluence, for a number of reasons the health status of its people deteriorates with increasing remoteness (i.e. distance from its capital cities). The proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in local communities increases with remoteness and this contributes to the urban-remote health gradient. Across Australia as a whole there is a 12-17 year difference in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Between remote and metropolitan areas the difference is estimated to be 3–4 years.

Against this background, the Alliance’s vision is good health and wellbeing in rural and remote Australia. The Alliance takes a broad view of health and a long-term view of the development of rural Australia. Its operation is based on the view that all Australians, wherever they live, should have access to comprehensive, high quality health services and the opportunity for equivalent health outcomes. This aspiration requires action relating to the social and economic determinants of health, as well as to factors in the health sector more narrowly defined.

These broader issues include education, housing, employment, rural and regional development, telecommunications, transport, cultural safety, illness prevention, health promotion, and health infrastructure. The Alliance works with consumers, communities and governments to make the diverse communities of rural and remote Australia healthy and health-promoting places in which to live and work.

In 1998-99 the NRHA was a participant with Commonwealth, State and Territory governments in development of a national strategic framework for rural and remote health in Australia: Healthy Horizons. It worked with governments on the updated Healthy Horizons 2003-07 and on its review in 2008.

The NRHA is manager of the biennial National Rural Health Conference. The Conference has become a key event on the calendar of people interested in improving health in rural, regional and remote Australia, whether as community representatives, policy makers, researchers or other stakeholders.

The NRHA is the national manager for the Australian Government of the Rural Australia Medical Undergraduate Scholarship Scheme (RAMUS).[1] The RAMUS scheme is part of the national strategy to increase the medical workforce available to people in rural Australia. RAMUS supports around 580 rural students each year to study medicine.

The Alliance also manages Stream 2 of the Rural Health Continuing Education program (RHCE2) on behalf of the Department of Health.[2] RHCE2 is designed to foster inter-professional, team-based training and joint continuing development projects in order to better enable practising health professionals to provide health care services, both as members of multi-disciplinary teams and as individual practitioners. The program is also designed to support the retention of rural and remote health professionals.[2]

The Alliance is owner and manager of the Australian Journal of Rural Health (AJRH)[3]

Partyline is the Alliance’s flagship magazine.[4]

Friends of the Alliance is a support network for individuals and organisations interested in rural health and in supporting the work of the Alliance.

Alliance chairs

Chairpersons of the Alliance have been:

Chair Years Bruce Chater 1993 – 1994 Sabina Knight 1994 – 1995 Sue Wade 1995 – 1997 John Lawrence 1997 – 1999 Steve Clark 1999 – 2000 Nigel Stewart 2000 – 2003 Sue McAlpin 2003 – 2005 John Wakerman 2005 – 2008 Jenny May 2008 – 2011 Lesley Barclay 2011 – 2013 Tim Kelly 2013 – 2015 Geri Malone 2015 - present

References

  1. ↑ National Rural Health Alliance (2003), Rural and remote health papers 1991-2003, National Rural Health Alliance, ISBN 978-0-9577630-4-3
  2. ↑ http://rhce.ruralhealth.org.au/
  3. ↑ The Australian journal of rural health, Blackwell, 1995, ISSN 1440-1584
  4. ↑ National Rural Health Alliance; Friends of the Alliance (1999), Partyline : newsletter of Friends of the Alliance, Friends of the Alliance, ISSN 1442-0848
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