Robbie Katter has attacked the state government for pouring money into the likely Olympics candidacy in 2032 while local issues such as the Julia Creek Hospital remain unresolved.
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In November the hospital was downgraded from a level 2 to a level 1 facility due to staffing issues.
Mr Katter said the government invested $7 million in rebuilding that hospital a couple of years ago, so it is a brand-new building that was downgraded because they could not find the staff.
"There are a lot of reasons for that. COVID was one," Mr Katter said.
"We have also become reliant on locums from overseas and interstate which is not a sustainable model".
Mr Katter said this had been a problem for a long time, yet it remains unaddressed and it hurts remote areas the most.
"These towns are struggling for survival. The repercussions are that once you lose doctors or nurses or services people leave town and then you have fewer teachers and fewer children at school," he said.
"The problem then self-manifests. It is very big deal to have services downgraded. It is absolutely devastating to the town".
Mr Katter said McKinlay's Mayor, Philip Curr, and Deputy Mayor, Janene Fegan, have been working very hard trying to get a meeting with the minister to resolve this and the CEO of the North West HHS, Karen Murphy, had been doing a terrific job trying to hold things together.
"As most people probably would not know, Mount Isa is an anomaly when it comes to hospital funding. It is activity based funding, where most western or remote hospitals such as hospitals in the cape are all block funded," he said.
"Mount Isa has a much bigger advantage. The North West HHS struggles to keep all of this together. It needs extra support and it needs effort from government. We need to look at the training and the skill set that is commensurate with remoteness. We need to be flexible in the skill set and the level of training that we would accept in those areas such as recognition of overseas skill sets for nurses and doctors. It needs effort. We are struggling to keep things alive".
Mr Katter said in these circumstances billions of dollars should not go to "a pitch for the Olympic Games".
"Nurses and doctors need incentives. The dialysis unit in Mount Isa is a disgrace. It looks like downtown Mumbai," he said.
"We have 10 chairs and Alice Springs has 70, but that is not a priority because we are going to embark on new pieces of social infrastructure and aspire to host the Olympic Games. How about we fix this stuff first? "
Mr Katter said elderly people who wanted to live and die in Julia Creek have had to move from town.
"At the very least we can have nurses there to keep those two elderly people from being displaced and at least adequate medical services in a new medical building," he said.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
