Mr PETER BESSELING (Port Macquarie) [1.56 p.m.]: I have spoken on many occasions in this Chamber about the need to upgrade hospital infrastructure at Port Macquarie and the impact that the lack of bed space and services for patients such as those with heart conditions in particular has on a regional community such as ours. The pressures on our hospital system are ever increasing. A major step towards keeping people healthy within their daily lives, treating them within their home environment and providing community health services must be undertaken if we wish our communities to remain active, vibrant and out of hospital. In the vast majority of discussions that occur surrounding health, community health services often is the forgotten cousin to the high drama of emergency care provided at our hospitals and the impacts on people's lives when those services fail.

The long-term effects of poor community health services can be equally devastating on communities but, given that there is not the hype, the media interest, or the immediate danger in the time lapse health impacts that these services target, it is easy to see why resources often are focused on other areas. There is a saying with which most members would be familiar, which many of us consider in our day-to-day lives, and which has its roots firmly generated in our approach to health: Prevention is better than cure. Given this is something that is readily accepted within our community and rarely challenged, if ever, this one simple statement should form the basis of all approaches to health service delivery in Australia in the future, not only in relation to how we treat people who have known health issues but also in relation to how we build infrastructure in our communities that helps to support healthy lifestyles through exercise, diet and social interaction.

Whilst the community welcomes the fact that we have a vibrant and socially active older population over the age of 65 in Port Macquarie, which comprises a large percentage of our population, the most recent figures from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages for babies born in Port Macquarie show that we are ranked thirteenth in Australia, with 465 babies born in 2008. There must be something in the water. This is a significant statistic for our area and for the delivery of community health services in general if we are to use the "prevention is better than cure" principle. There is no better place to start dealing with a person's health needs than from a very early age. This is where early childhood nurses have played an important role in Australian life, having for generations provided a valuable service to new mothers and their babies.

It is important to note that, whilst early childhood nurses are crucial in working with young children and babies to identify and to deal with health concerns such as weight, feeding and development issues, they also play an extremely important role, in particular, for new parents. These nurses regularly deal with postnatal depression and mothers' inability to care for their children adequately and are also often on the front line addressing mental health, alcohol and drug issues as well as having child protection obligations under the Keep Them Safe reforms. This role is crucial in making sure that not only are new mothers and fathers coping with their roles as parents but also their children get the best possible start to life. It is crucial that such community health roles are actively supported through adequate funding that recognises this valuable role and the realities of the current birth rates in the Port Macquarie area. There is genuine community concern that the role of early childhood nurses is being compromised through either a lack of funding or an inadequate budgetary allocation to our area.

Since Friday 10 September there have been no early childhood services for the Camden Haven region because the North Coast Area Health Service did not, or was unable to, backfill the position of a nurse who took a two-week holiday. Given the value to the individual and to society of having a health assessment early in life, as well as having health impacts associated with parenting dealt with immediately, this is clearly an unacceptable situation. This reduction in service comes on top of claims that only children to the age of two are eligible for early childhood community health services in our local community, whereas this service is provided in other areas for children to the age of five. Given the high birth rates in our community, it is time that adequate resources were applied to community health, and particularly to early childhood services.

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