Health Service Delivery in Rural and Remote Contexts

Running head: REMOTE HEALTHY SERVICE DELIVERY 1
HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY IN RURAL AND REMOTE CONTEXTS
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REMOTE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY 2
Introduction
Remote areas refer to places that are away from towns and cities and where there are no
large populations of people. Remote or rural areas are usually with unfavorable climate or
temperatures as well as the shortage of security, food, and even water sometimes. Most people in
white collar jobs do not like to work in those places due to the mentioned disadvantages above.
Regarding health, research shows that people in those places have got poor health and are most
prone to have health problems and needs. This essay gives an outline of the overall rural or
remote healthcare delivery in Australia discussing contemporary remote health practice, models
of medical care and difficulties that are involved in enrolling and retaining an outstanding as well
as committed professionals. In addition, it will highlight the challenges experience socially and
economically, inequalities in getting health services on the bases of health education and
treatments, problems in recruitment, unfavorable ecological conditions, and professional hazards
of dangers at workplace, topographical and social seclusion are elements that are found to
contribute to remote shortcoming (Carey, 2018). This is the common concerns raised by
healthcare providers especially if they are requested to work in a rural area.
Nature of rural and remote areas
According to the stubbornness and reluctance by a significant number of health
practitioners concerning job opportunities in the rural and remote areas, it is clear that those
places have unfavorable conditions for the human safety in a satisfactory and comfortable life
(Rollin, Ridout, & Campbell, 2018). Rural ecological are many and vary according to the thing
found in them, and therefore it becomes a problem in giving a clear definition of what rural
means as a term. For instance, in Australia, rural descriptions involve scarcely disseminated
populations, considerable distances in comparison to where towns and cities are as well as

REMOTE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY 3
diverse land uses and the varieties in social and economic fields. Studies show that individuals
residing in remote and rural areas in Australia have got so many shortcomings, particularly in
health matters. This shortcoming involves inequality in accessing health services, higher rates of
deaths for both infants and adults, prone to attack by many diseases, the possibility of getting
harmed in the places of work as well as social and economic difficulties in contrast to urban
areas (Carr, & Tait, 2018).
Current Australian rural populations
Modern Australian rural societies are described by different categories of groups of
people that is aboriginal and non-aboriginal Australians as well as immigrant peoples. It is good
to note that people in remote and rural areas look themselves as different from individuals living
in urban areas; they are however delighted of their custom and the lifestyle they have
(McLachlan, S., Harvey, Newman & Robinson, 2018). Nevertheless, life in these areas is
changing, and many rural societies are migrating to towns or urban in accordance to research
findings. This might be as a result of new management by the government as a way of bringing
people together for the effective management to make it easy to provide help where need be like
for example in a drought period.
Due to this movement of rural population, they end up having difficulties in maintaining
their cultures, economic issues as well as social matters that are considered to be strengths of any
productive community (Philip, & MacLeod, 2018). Domination of the Australian nation by the
capitalist is believed to have resulted from this reduction of rural populations. Generally, the
young individuals migrate to urban to look for job opportunities, quality education as well as
career issues. When this experience is combined with the incapability to qualify the chances

REMOTE HEALTH SERVICE DELIVERY 4
urban and well-established centers, contribute to problems of employing and retaining the rural
professionals as we have seen even in the health profession.
Healthcare providers in rural and remote areas
Health care providers involve medical doctors, the pharmacists, aboriginal health
workers, nurses also dominate there regarding their numbers which are about sixty-five percent
about the total number of health practitioners in those areas as well as allied health officers and
many others. Surprisingly, job vacancies are advertised for every type of health profession, and
still, we encounter shortages of health workforce due to reluctant of professional from applying
for this post (Wakerman, 2018). Complains have been raised against deficiencies of experienced
doctors in remote and rural areas and researchers acknowledges that it is as a result of
government influence and priorities. Studies show that the trained doctors view the rural areas as
places that lack proper facilities, money and lacks a comfortable working environment
concerning their standards.
The reports from the interviews made to the doctors show that they only go to work in
rural areas when they have no other option of tracing jobs in urban centers. It is worthy to
believe that environments and needs of even the nurses are the same as the ones required by
doctors; things such as quality of education, housing, security, accessibility to good foods as well
as better infrastructures. Government fails to address these concerns of the health workers and
then expect them to be ready to work in such areas whereas others are in a better environment
with the same qualification. The Australia Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) have found
that there is danger in the nursing field (Malatzky, Nixon, Mitchell, & Bourke, 2018). Australia
has been experiencing the shortage of nurses, and the already trained nurses are not able to
provide to cover all the areas that need their attention especially in the rural and remote areas