Community
3 December, 2025
How's the local care? Community has say on changes
Residents and organisations from St Arnaud and across the country came together on Monday to discuss just how that might look at a workshop facilitated by Larter.
THE COMMUNITY has spoken. And it wants more access to healthcare locally.
Residents and organisations from St Arnaud and across the country came together on Monday to discuss just how that might look at a workshop facilitated by Larter.
This project was initiated because it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract and retain health and medical professionals in rural communities across the region.
Murray and Western Victoria PHNs (Primary Health Network) sought input to design sustainable primary healthcare services for the East Wimmera region particularly focusing on St Arnaud to inform the service design and partnership approach.
“It’s an important conversation we know the residents themselves need to be a part of,” Murray PHN chief executive Matt Jones said.
“It’s great that we’ve had interest from the Federal Government who may want to fund an initiative if we can put one together that everyone’s needs and aspirations are.”
“And we’ve had such an engaged group here today, that’s a very good start.”
East Wimmera Health Service chief executive Trevor Adem said it was positive to see so many people having their say on what local healthcare could look like in the region.
“We’ve had a lot of great ideas come out of this afternoon and it sounds like a central hub, a sort of one-stop-shop for health and wellbeing services, is something people may be able to get a lot out of,” he said.
“Now it’s about what services can go in there and how we can get the plan forward so that everyone’s able to benefit from it, going forward.”
“There’s a lot of potential here and I’m excited to see what can come of this.”
There was a range of different voices in the room, some from across the country, including people representing the council (St Arnaud staff and councillor Karen Probst), Rural Workforce Agency Victoria and professional bodies representing allied health disciplines and nursing.
“I think we’ve really captured a range of perspectives from both residents who would be using the services to the organisations that would be providing them,” Mr Jones said.
“It’s very promising to see.”
Larter’s Marianne Shearer said this was just the beginning of the process for her team now.
“We have a lot to work with and now we will be able to collate all the ideas into one place that will hopefully be able to be presented to the Federal Government,” she said.
“The vision is for St Arnaud communities to be able to access the primary healthcare they need, at the right time and place for optimal health and wellbeing.”
“It’s such a privilege to be able to be part of this process and support the communities and help get them to speak up and hopefully have their needs met.”
She said many people had commented on the sense of community that was engaging in the room.
“We’re looking forward to seeing where this goes next and how we can broaden this out to more areas across the region.
“Time will most definitely tell.
“It really is a very exciting step in hopefully the right direction.”
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