National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA), Media Release, 25 August 2025

Rural Australians are missing out on $1,090.47 in healthcare funding per person every year, compared to city residents – a funding gap the National Rural Health Alliance (NRHA) warns is costing lives.

“The Forgotten Health Spend: A Report on the Expenditure Deficit in Rural Australia” tells a story of how we starve our rural Australians of healthcare access,” said Susi Tegen, NRHA Chief Executive. Such a deficit is directly responsible for primary and hospital care via GP and other healthcare professionals inaccessibility, long wait times, outdated healthcare infrastructure, inflexible policy and funding and an undersupply of rural specialist workforce.

The gap between rural and metropolitan spending is worsening. Since the 2023 NOUS and NRHA report was released, which referred to government figures, the healthcare expenditure gap has increased by $110 per person per year.

This is not an abstract figure – the underspend is felt sorely in GP and primary care clinics, maternity services, hospitals, mental health clinics, disability and aged care services across rural Australia.

Rural Australians make up almost a third of our population – that is more than 7.3 million people going without the ease of access to healthcare city-dwellers take for granted. Living with less – $8.35 billion less per year, to be exact – is not a reality we would expect our metropolitan populations to accept. It is unjust to expect it from rural Australians.

Such inequity is exacerbated, considering the indispensable economic contribution of rural communities that make up almost 30% of our population. “They are crucial for Australia’s economic productivity and social wellbeing, considering that 90 per cent of our food, almost half of our tourism income, and two-thirds of Australia’s export wealth comes from rural areas”, Ms Tegen shares.

Rural, remote and regional health, disability and ageing care remains absent from national priorities, undermining equity and the ability of these communities to prosper for the benefit of the whole of Australia, without equitable access to mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing support.

Ms Tegen said Australia can no longer afford to ignore this crisis, as current funding and policies are not fit for purpose.

“Just because we rely on rural Australians economically to live in the regions, doesn’t mean that it is okay to underfund and underserve. We need to act now to ensure the premature death and higher illness rates stop.”

The Forgotten Health Spend report, produced in collaboration with the Nous Group, calls for sustainable, long-term solutions, including:

• A rural health fund of $1 billion per annum, which allows for coordinated, flexible state-federal-local level funding models and infrastructure funding, to address regions with thin markets and a lack of infrastructure investment in the health, ageing, and disability sector
• Collaborative, multidisciplinary workforce approaches, to build integrated, cooperative teams and prioritise continuity of care
• Regional planning and governance, to optimise local resources and adapt to community needs

“The government must act now for our fellow Australians”, Susi Tegen concluded. These figures are a wake-up call. We must invest in rural communities and deliver healthcare that’s equitable, sustainable, and effective.

“Failing to act makes us part of the problem and treats rural communities as second-class citizens.”