00:00It's never a quick trip to town for Cathy and Kerry MacDonald.
00:07Hi, how are you?
00:09You can't walk down the street without seeing somebody you know,
00:13or feeling in a familiar environment.
00:15They've called Longreach home for most of their lives,
00:18but since Kerry developed a heart condition,
00:21they've been forced to regularly travel from the outback to Brisbane,
00:251,200 kilometres away, to see specialists.
00:29The 80-year-old was offered a spot in a three-year medical trial in the capital,
00:35but turned it down.
00:36We agonised over it, you know.
00:38We'd have to leave and virtually start another life.
00:43Advocacy groups say too many older Queenslanders
00:47are forced to choose between their home and their health.
00:50People are having to move away to access health services and other supports.
00:57That has a whole, you know, grief, loss, trauma associated with that.
01:02The divide is deepening between country and city life.
01:06Rural doctors warn cost of living and housing pressures have exacerbated the problem,
01:11with more people moving to the regions putting further pressure on existing services.
01:16Some of our rural and remote communities are waiting five to six weeks
01:20before they can even see their general practitioner.
01:22The stark reality is the further from the city someone lives, the earlier they could die.
01:28The most recent data from Queensland Health shows the median age of death in very remote parts of the state
01:33was 75 years old compared to 81 in major cities.
01:38And those in the most disadvantaged areas die on average three years earlier than those in high socioeconomic areas.
01:46Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death and it's largely preventable.
01:51We are actually seeing people presenting a lot later in disease progression
01:55and therefore their outcomes are nowhere near as good as if we'd picked it up earlier.
01:59Advocacy groups want a bigger investment in health from both the state and federal governments.
02:05It shouldn't matter what your postcode is.
02:08Every Queenslander and every Australian, for that matter,
02:12deserves to have the same sort of access to good quality health care.
02:16The McDonalds plan to stay in their beloved postcode for as long as possible.
02:21Despite the tyranny of distance, they feel they're among the lucky ones.
02:25We have doctors that look after us very well.
02:29If we need specialist treatment, well we're sent away.
02:32We feel that we don't miss out too much.
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