Creating the Integrative Round Table of Health: Uniting Wellness, Healing, and Balance

Australia's healthcare system is at a crossroads, grappling with the centralisation of services into expansive "super hospitals" while rural and regional facilities face closures and underfunding. This shift has profound implications for patient care, particularly in remote communities.

The Decline of Rural Healthcare Facilities

Over the past two decades, more than 50% of small rural maternity units in Australia have been closed, a trend driven by economic rationalism without sufficient regard for community needs . These closures have led to significant gaps in healthcare access, forcing patients to travel long distances for essential services.Australian Medical Association

The centralisation of services has also resulted in fragmented care. Patients often navigate complex referral systems, leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment. For instance, a toddler with a styrofoam piece lodged in the ear experienced a six-week delay before receiving appropriate care, highlighting systemic inefficiencies.

Challenges in Super Hospitals

While super hospitals boast advanced technology and specialised services, they are not without challenges. Reports indicate instances where patients in emergency departments faced prolonged wait times, with staff overwhelmed and communication breakdowns prevalent. Such scenarios underscore the need for a more patient-centric approach.

The Rise of Integrative and Wholistic Care

In response to these challenges, there's a growing movement towards integrative and holistic healthcare approaches.Integrative medicine combines conventional medical treatments with complementary therapies, focusing on patient-centred care that addresses physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.

International Perspectives:

India's AYUSH System

India's AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy) system offers a model for integrating traditional and modern medicine. Institutions like the All India Institute of Ayurveda have established integrative medicine centres within major hospitals, aiming to provide comprehensive care .Press Information Bureau+2organiser.org+2ETHealthworld.com+2

These initiatives demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of a healthcare model that respects and incorporates diverse medical traditions.

When Did Australia Start Prioritising Profit Over Patients?

Imagine walking into a bustling emergency department with someone you love, scared and vulnerable. The hours tick by. Staff drift in and out. Paperwork is filled, referrals are written, but little action is taken. You’re told to wait—again. What happened to swift, coordinated care?

It’s a question many Australians are now asking: When did our healthcare system start to resemble that of the United States—where private patients are prioritised, and public hospital systems groan under the weight of bureaucracy, budget cuts, and centralisation?

Let’s pause for a moment and consider what it used to be like, especially in our smaller, regional hospitals.

A Glimpse Into the Past:

Coordinated, Immediate, Compassionate

In one such case, a young woman arrived at a small regional emergency department with severe abdominal pain. A nurse completed an initial assessment, suspecting an ectopic pregnancy. Bloods were sent to the onsite pathology lab without delay. An ultrasound was quickly organised, revealing an ovarian swelling. The on-call doctor confirmed a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Within minutes, a nearby operating theatre was opened, and a surgical team assembled. Within two hours, the patient was out of surgery and recovering on the ward.

This level of immediate, coordinated care was once the norm in many of Australia’s regional hospitals. Communication between departments was fluid, decisions were swift, and staff were motivated by a shared commitment to community and patient wellbeing—not ticking bureaucratic boxes.

What’s Changed?

Today, this same patient might face a very different path. She might wait hours in a “super hospital” for assessment, be referred for multiple tests across different departments, face delays in scheduling surgery, or be transferred to another facility entirely. Her condition might worsen in the interim. And if things go tragically wrong, the narrative might shift—blaming the system failure on the need for another drug or vaccine, rather than admitting the logistical breakdown.

This isn’t just anecdotal. The Australian Medical Association has long warned that the centralisation of services into “super hospitals” has disrupted continuity of care and negatively impacted rural and regional health outcomes.

Why I’d Choose a Small Integrative Hospital Every Time — And Why You Should Too

I’ve had babies in both large, urban hospitals and small, rural ones. And if I had to choose again? It wouldn’t even be a question.

In one sleek, state-of-the-art super hospital, I was treated like a patient on a conveyor belt — moved from one department to another with little communication between teams. Nurses openly admitted that patients were often left to deteriorate because, in their words, “we’re trained to manage emergencies.” The idea of helping the body through the birth process naturally, with care and patience, was met with scepticism and silence. The system didn’t make space for prevention, only crisis.

In the smaller hospital? The staff were attentive, collaborative, and fully present. They knew me, they worked together, and they listened. Birth wasn't treated like a ticking time bomb — it was supported as the miraculous, complex, and deeply human process it is.

The Hollowing Out of Our Local Hospitals

So many of those once-vibrant small hospitals across Australia are now hollow shells. Too many have been bulldozed. Once equipped and staffed to meet the real-time needs of communities, they now serve as dusty storage spaces — their equipment stripped and sent to the ever-growing super hospitals in our cities. The few staff who remain are typically employed to care for aged or permanently disabled residents in environments that have lost all clinical versatility.

Some regional sites are rebranded as nursing posts, but these are chronically underfunded and underequipped. When the inevitable failure happens, it becomes headline fodder to justify more funding for — you guessed it — the next super hospital.

Meanwhile, millions of taxpayer dollars are poured into glossy TV campaigns for services like the Flying Doctor and Ronald McDonald House, all designed to reassure regional Australians that they do have access — even if that means hours of travel, long waiting lists, and a fractured care experience. The cycle repeats.

A Vision for Something Better:

The Integrative Health Hub

Picture this: a hospital run by a roundtable board of professionals from diverse disciplines — medical doctors, nurses, allied health practitioners, natural health therapists, nutritionists, mental health specialists. A truly integrative, multimodal health hub. A place where patients are presented with choices, given full disclosure, and respected as partners in their own healing. Where referrals happen across the hallway, not across the state. Where the question isn’t just “What drug do we use?” but “What approach would serve this patient best?”

This isn’t a fantasy. Countries like India have implemented integrative systems through AYUSH — combining Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homoeopathy with mainstream medicine in government hospitals. One review of AYUSH-based integrative health centres found improved patient satisfaction, lower drug costs, and better chronic disease management outcomes than standard biomedical models alone (Patwardhan et al., 2022).

The Evidence Is There. The Will Is Not — Yet.

A 2023 study in the Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine found that patients treated at integrative clinics had significantly better outcomes in pain, mental health, and chronic condition management compared to those in standard care alone (Berman et al., 2023). Another Australian study emphasised the potential cost savings and improved outcomes from expanding multidisciplinary, holistic models in rural settings (Hunter et al., 2016).

So, why aren’t we doing more of it?

Because it doesn’t fit the profit model. Super hospitals serve administrative scale, pharmaceutical throughput, and private insurance agendas. Integrative care hubs serve people.

What We Deserve

We deserve healthcare that doesn’t just react but connects. Care that sees the whole person, not just the presenting symptom. We deserve hospitals that bring the best of all modalities together — modern diagnostics, emergency care, and the wisdom of natural medicine and lifestyle-based healing.

Let’s stop stripping our small hospitals of their soul and start turning them into centres of true wellness again.

What If You Could Join a Healthcare Revolution Rooted in Common Sense — and Compassion?

Let’s talk honestly for a moment.

Much has been said about why doctors "won’t go bush." We’re told it’s the remoteness, the hardship, the lack of coffee shops and cultural perks. So, we throw money at the problem — incentives, cars, housing, sign-on bonuses. But what if the real issue is something no one wants to admit?

What if doctors — and patients — are simply tired of a system that doesn’t allow real medicine to happen?

The Truth About Rural Health Work

(That No One Wants to Talk About)

Imagine being a medical professional trained to heal, to connect, to diagnose with insight and treat with skill — only to be shackled by quotas, policy algorithms, and pharmaceutical sales targets. Imagine spending more time on paperwork and compliance than with the person in front of you. Imagine answering not to the patient’s needs, but to corporate metrics in a tower far from the community you serve.

It’s no wonder rural roles go unfilled.

And yet, as a homeopath and acupuncturist, I’d leap at the chance to work in a regional health hub — if even a fraction of that same support were extended to us. I’ve paid for my education, set up my own clinic from scratch, and asked my patients to fund their own care out of pocket. My prescriptions aren’t subsidised. My results — often upwards of 70–80% success rates in chronic and complex conditions — don’t “count” in the official numbers. But they count to the people walking out of my clinic feeling better.

Real World Success, Without the Price Tag

Australia spends more than $200 billion annually on health, with chronic illness rates continuing to climb. Much of this funding cycles through centralised systems that deliver fragmented care, leaving patients to chase referrals and practitioners to chase funding (AIHW, 2023).

A fraction of that investment could revitalise rural hospitals, equip them with modern diagnostics and allied health services, and offer a salary (not just a sign-on bonus) to professionals of all modalities — medical and complementary alike. The result? Local jobs. Local trust. Real outcomes.

Imagine the Health Plan We Could Build

Now picture this:

• A community-centred health hub in every rural town.

• Teams of medical and trained, experienced natural health physicians.

• A system where care is the metric, not throughput.

• No bloated admin, no pharmaceutical quotas, no 4-month waitlists.

• Government-funded integrative health pathways, with homeopathy and herbal medicine available alongside pathology and surgery.

This is not a pipe dream. It's already happening in pilot models across Europe, in India’s public sector, and in Australian clinics like Integrative Health Solutions in SA and NIIM in Victoria — places that blend evidence-based natural care with conventional medical frameworks to treat the whole person.

The Economic Argument No One’s Making

We are constantly told that funding holistic or allied modalities would be “too expensive.” But the opposite is true.

A recent Deloitte Access Economics report on preventative care estimates that Australia could save $4.90 for every $1 invested in allied health interventions for chronic conditions like diabetes, mental health disorders, and cardiovascular disease (Deloitte, 2020). That’s billions back into the system — not to mention lives restored.

Add to that reduced travel costs, fewer lost work hours, better birth outcomes, and fewer emergency interventions — and it becomes clear: the integrative model isn’t just good medicine, it’s good economics.

It’s Time to Join the Health Plan For the People

What’s missing isn’t the funding. It’s the courage. The courage to redesign care with communities instead of imposing structures on them. The courage to value results over brand names. The courage to fund practitioners who get people well — not just keep them medicated.

Are you ready to be part of that future?

Then join us. Support the clinics, the co-ops, the community health hubs that are already showing the way. Lobby for policy that includes real integration, not tokenistic “lifestyle advice” buried beneath prescription pads.

Let’s build a health plan worth fighting for — one where rural Australians thrive, practitioners flourish, and wellness is more than a marketing slogan.

The Research Behind the Concerns

A 2020 systematic review published in BMC Health Services Research found that smaller hospitals are often better positioned to deliver more personalised and efficient care due to closer collaboration among staff and fewer administrative hurdles . Additionally, regional hospitals often have lower rates of healthcare-associated infections, and higher patient satisfaction scores, as reported by the AIHW (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) .

Meanwhile, concerns about the growing influence of private interests and pharmaceutical lobbying in Australian healthcare are not unfounded. Research has shown that medical education is increasingly shaped by corporate sponsorship, with limited emphasis on integrative or preventative models of care .

A Call to Reimagine

Is it time to reimagine our healthcare system? To stop seeing progress as synonymous with scale, and instead prioritise responsiveness, community-rooted care, and integrated approaches?

Reinvesting in small hospitals and recognising the value of multidisciplinary, localised teams—where testing, diagnosis, and treatment can happen seamlessly under one roof—could be the key to restoring trust and dignity to patient care.

Let us not wait until the next “super” solution fails. Let us act now, by looking to models that once worked—and can again.

Conclusion

Australia's healthcare system faces the challenge of balancing technological advancements with equitable access to care.Revitalising rural hospitals and embracing integrative medicine can bridge existing gaps, ensuring that all Australians receive comprehensive and compassionate healthcare.

References

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8. Berman, B. M., Langevin, H. M., Witt, C. M., & Dubois, R. N. (2023). The impact of integrative healthcare on chronic disease management. Journal of Integrative and Complementary Medicine, 29(2), 145–154. https://doi.org/10.1089/jicm.2023.29007

9. Hunter, J., Wardle, J., Kotsirilos, V., & Molodysky, E. (2016). Establishing an Australasian integrative medicine practice-based research network. Australian Family Physician, 45(12). https://www.racgp.org.au/afp/2016/december/the-case-for-establishing-an-australasian-integrat

10. National Institute of Integrative Medicine (NIIM). (n.d.). Melbourne Clinic Services. Retrieved from https://niim.com.au

11. Patwardhan, B., Mutalik, G., & Tillu, G. (2022). Integrative healthcare in India: Models and future directions. Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, 13(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaim.2022.100584

12. Deloitte Access Economics. (2020). The Value of Allied Health Care in Australia. Retrieved from https://www.alliedhealth.org.au