Dear Valued Partners and Member Agencies of Wimmera Primary Care Partnership

On September 10 we received an email from Georgie Crozier, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Shadow Minister for Health saying that there were ongoing funding concerns for Primary Care Partnerships.  She confronted the Health Minister Jenny Mikakos with those concerns in Parliament who didn't deny that funding cuts for PCP's would be implemented by the Andrews Labour Government in 2020.

So where does that leave us?  We are unsure - we know that we won't go down without a fight.  We have put a call out to all member agencies, and I ask you all again, it would be greatly appreciated if you could forward a letter to Wimmera PCP - addressed to Minister Mikakos, showing your support for Wimmera PCP.   What would it mean to you, your agency and your community if PCP's were cut, think about how we have partnered with you previously...currently...

We understand this might be a hard task and we are more than happy to draft a letter for you to sign and make personal, please let me know if this is an option you would like.

We have received some great support already, below are just some quotes from our partners:

" they provide a direct connection for health, local government, education and social services to coordinate resources and find solutions to local health challenges"

"they have played a direct and leading role in sourcing funding, coordination and facilitation of our service - it simply wouldn't have happened without them"

"they have worked on projects which have helped to ensure our rural and remote communities have equitable access to health and well-being professionals and to get the care they need as close to home as possible"

"they enable our organisation to better understand the areas we want to work in and the people and organisations we need to connect with to deliver our services and be active and effective in primary prevention"

"they are the glue that links organisations together, enablers that increase organisation capacity and drivers of health policy implementation"

"they have established close ties with our health service, schools, community groups and neighbourhood house sector including Men's Sheds - it has helped us to access much needed funds and provide various health & well-being initiatives and programs to our town"

"without them we would not be able to provide the service to our community that we currently do"

"they provide strong support and health presence in distributed regional and rural context"

"they embody the 'social coalition' between communities, governments and businesses as identified by policy-makers to be the key condition for rural regeneration"

"they are a strong voice for our small community, providing much needed funding and support such as training and information in health promotion, governance and advocacy"

"they have created supportive awareness of Aboriginal protocols, culture and connectedness to land and the significate levels these hold with the Aboriginal community - they take the journey and highlighted this process into practice by providing mainstream services the cultural awareness training package, ensuring the services have the three flags, the plaque acknowledging the Traditional Owners and cultural audits"

And just to finish off - "the value adding to the public purse spend in the order of 1:4 return on investment.One dollar expended in prevention saves four dollars spent on recovery and emergency treatment.In a budget of $500,000 per annum this is a real government saving of $1.5 million per annum.Money that can be well utilised to support other demanding government initiatives and programs.Or simply put, each year of operation of PCP enables a further three years of operation to be achieved"

Please forward letters of support to geoff.witmitz@wimmerapcp.org.au

Thank you for your ongoing support.

Geoff Witmitz                                                        Tracey Chenoweth
Executive Officer of Wimmera PCP                     Executive Chair of Wimmera pcp