Health and Ambulance Services Minister Cameron Dick said he would honour commitments for frontline services in the North West. 

“Public health services are crucial for rural and regional Queenslanders,” Mr Dick said. 

“Labor’s focus in health is on patient safety, promoting good health and preventing illness and disease.

“We will be delivering on our commitments to restore frontline health services in our hospitals.

“This includes new nursing positions in the North West’s health district to restore services cut by the former LNP government.”

A promise of 4400 new nursing positions were part of Labor’s election campaign.

State member for Mount Isa Robbie Katter said that at this stage he did not know what Labor had in store for the North West but any extra staff would be welcomed. 

“I’m not privy to Labor’s health budget, but if they’ve made that commitment then the North West stands to benefit,”  Mr Katter said.

“We had huge cuts to our public health educators, nutritionists, liaison workers, diabetes educators, so our preventative health has suffered, and that’s where the resources are needed and that’s where I want to see the health dollar go.

“Another need in this electorate is for regular dental services, especially in the smaller towns such as Normanton, Karumba, Hughenden, etc. 

“Dental health is a huge problem, affecting and impacting on general health. 

“There is a capacity for dental students from Townsville, but there are no chairs in rural communities and no supervisor dentists to support students in rural dentistry.”

Mr Katter said other services such as e-health and tele-health would be a great help if introduced to keep patients in touch with specialists in Townsville and Brisbane. 

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said that through the next term of government Labor would employ 1000 nurse graduates a year and 400 nurses.