Eight Hours for a Ten-Minute Appointment shows what rural healthcare access looks like for families in regional South Australia
Eight hours on the road. Ten minutes with a doctor.
That’s the reality for Alan, who lives in Peterborough and travels to Adelaide several times a year just to manage his health – a common issue for rural healthcare access in regional South Australia.
This story is the second in From Here to Healthcare, a grassroots initiative led by Alex Thomas which gives rural patients and families space to tell the stories behind the statistics, and turn lived experience into a broader conversation about access, equity and change.
A lifetime lived in the country
Alan, 72, lives in Peterborough with his wife Colleen. Born in Mildura, he grew up on stations and later managed a few himself. Colleen has lived rurally all her life. Their daughter Olivia thrived on big-sky adventures, School of the Air, and schooling in Peterborough, Port Pirie and Whyalla.
Healthcare runs deep in this family. Colleen spent 10 years as an ambulance officer and Olivia followed her passion for rural nursing into a directorship role with Southern Cross Care in Far West NSW.
These days, life for Colleen and Alan revolves around Rotary, gardening, cooking for St Jo’s school – and accessing basic healthcare.
Living with serious illness in a country town
A severe asthmatic, Alan has lived with aspergillosis since childhood, a lung fungus that makes him vulnerable to certain allergens. Without regular treatment, it’s life-threatening.
“It’s why I never mowed the lawns,” Alan grins.
What doesn’t make him laugh is the travel. Three or four times a year, Alan makes an eight-hour round trip to Adelaide. Sometimes with an overnight stay.
That adds up to around 2,000 kilometres of driving every single year.
When specialist care is only available in the city
With specialists no longer travelling to regional centres, Adelaide appointments remain the only option.
“We’re not getting any younger – it knocks you around,” Alan says. “You drive three and a half hours down, sit through your appointment, then drive back. You’re fatigued, and once you get past Burra you’re dodging goats and roos. It’s not conducive to safe driving.”
Buses run to Adelaide four times a week, taking around ten hours return with dozens of stops. There are no taxis. No Uber.
Seeing the “local” GP involves a half-hour drive and a six-week wait.
For people who don’t drive or lack family support, accessing care is near impossible.
The limits of transport support
The Patient Assistance and Transport Scheme (PATS) offers financial help but comes with complex paperwork, multiple medical signatures and long waits. Colleen describes it as a “minefield”.
Volunteer-run Care in Motion provides ad hoc transport to appointments, but it costs, and visits must fall between 12pm and 2pm to avoid “unsafe travel hours”.
Rehabilitation care falls through the gaps
Not only are GP’s and Specialists hard to access, so is rehabilitation and preventative health care. A physiotherapist visits Peterborough Hospital just once a month. The routine care our city cousins rely on doesn’t exist in country areas.
“We’ve got a private physio, thank God, but she’s so booked out just keeping up with the workload,” Colleen says. “We could use two or three more.”
Alan added, “If you haven’t got private health, you’re stuffed.”
What needs to change
When asked how healthcare could improve, Colleen points to funding priorities. She wants regional hospitals better used and health dollars invested there.
“Not on the flash carpet and fancy offices, but for treatment rooms for these diseases that we can manage to prolong life, or make people comfortable to live what life they have left instead of having to endure moving to the city and relocating without your support network,” she says.
“If people like us didn’t live here, you guys in the city wouldn’t eat. It’s a bloody big country – I get that – but it’s what makes us special. Our freedom to live where and how we choose.”
To catch up on how From Here to Healthcare began, you’ll find it here.
The first lived-experience story is available here.
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