JENNIFER DOGGETT Health Policy Analyst
Calls for a national revival of community health centres
This article was supported by cohealth, a Health Equity Champion member of Croakey’s Health Media Funding Consortium.
If you are over 50 and grew up in Australia, there is
Other key attributes of CHCs include the use
a good chance that your first experience of health
of multi-disciplinary, team-based primary care;
care was in a community health centre (CHC).
integration of primary care with other health
Now almost invisible on the Federal health
services; and responsibility for a defined local
policy landscape, CHCs once played an important role in Australia’s health system, providing locally
population. However, awareness of community health —
accessible health and social care to millions of
outside of Victoria at least — is now so low among
Australians.
policy makers that it has been almost completely
With their focus on addressing the environmental and social determinants of health, and a model which emphasises community ownership of
omitted from the Federal Government’s current plans for the future of primary health care. The recently released Australia’s Primary Health
healthcare, CHCs differ significantly from
Care 10 Year Plan 2022-2032 contains only four
traditional general practice despite offering many
mentions of community health, and not one
of the same services.
mention of community health centres, apart
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The Health Advocate • MAY 2022
