The Minns Labor Government is once again neglecting regional NSW, leaving Moree hospital without a doctor physically present in the emergency department.
From February 3 to the evening of February 12, the Moree Emergency Department will yet again operate without a doctor on-site.
This is not an isolated incident.
Throughout December and January, hospitals across the Northern Tablelands, including Inverell, were repeatedly forced to operate without a doctor on the ground in the emergency department.
Nationals Member for Northern Tablelands, Brendan Moylan, said not ensuring a doctor is physically present is a staggering failure of the state government that puts lives at risk.
"This is a disgrace and it's happening far too often," Mr Moylan said.
"If this happened in Sydney for nine days, the Minister would be on every TV channel within the hour.
"When it happens in Moree or Inverell, the state government goes missing."
Emergency departments are designed to deal with heart attacks, trauma, strokes, and serious injuries, not to be run remotely or by phone while patients wait and hope nothing goes wrong.
"Country people are not asking for special treatment, we are asking for equal treatment," Mr Moylan said.
"Northern Tablelands families deserve the same standard of emergency care as families in the city.
Mr Moylan has once again raised this disgrace in NSW Parliament and has called on the Minns Labor Government to immediately ensure doctors are physically present in country emergency departments.
"Leaving emergency departments unstaffed is not 'managing a workforce issue;' it's abandoning country patients," he said.
"The government can find doctors for the city. They just seem to give up when it comes to regional NSW.
"The continued failure to staff regional emergency departments shows the state government has no serious plan for country health care.
"The government needs to act on the recommendations of the Select Committee on Remote, Rural and Regional Health which provided the government with several sensible suggestions on how to fix this problem.
"People in the Northern Tablelands deserve better and have every right to be angry."
