POOR connectivity in rural areas is in the Country Women’s Association (CWA) of NSW’s sights, but its effect on adequate healthcare has raised real concerns.
The organisation is using its Awareness Week to highlight the issue of poor connectivity in the bush, and improving healthcare through better internet and mobile phone reception is a priority.
It is also a priority for SANE Australia chief executive Jack Heath, who says internet connectivity is critical in helping people in remote areas.
SANE Australia supports 350,000 people affected by complex mental illness in rural and regional areas of NSW alone. Mr Heath, who has been made an honorary member of the CWA, said people dealing with mental health problems often feel very isolated, and when added with geographic isolation, it can be devastating.
Mr Heath said this can be helped by SANE Australia’s online forums, which are monitored by mental health professionals. People can enter these forums anonymously, and can listen or talk to others suffering from mental illness. The forums can be accessed by visiting www.saneforums.org.
This can help people who may be hesitant or even too far away to see a professional in person. But the trouble is, without adequate internet service, people can’t access this helpful service.
“Services like the SANE forums show why it is essential to increase digital connectivity in the bush – better connectivity translates into less suffering, less suicide and more hope,” he said. Better connectivity is also a huge problem for Daphne Bourne, who lives 20 kilometres from Jindabyne. Her husband has a pacemaker and defibrillator implant fitted to monitor his heart, and each night a reading is taken by a cardio messenger machine and sent to a technician. The trouble is, with poor mobile service, there is no way to send the readings. So Mrs Bourne drives the cardio messenger to town once a week, a 40-kilometre round trip, in order to send them. But it is still inadequate. “He could have had an episode and we wouldn’t know,” she said.
But Fiona Nash, Nationals deputy leader and Minister for Regional Communications, says there is a change on the horizon for broadband internet.
“Sky Muster is delivering 25 megabytes (mb)/second broadband internet to people who would never have received it any other way,” she said. “Sky Muster plans offer 35 gigabytes (gb) of peak data and 65gb of off-peak data for $50 a month, and for $95 a customer gets 50gb of peak data and 80gb off-peak. Sky Muster can comfortably run multiple connections at once.”
Ms Nash said Sky Muster and the fixed wireless broadband network were expected to be complete in 2018.
