A BRAND NEW survey from the Wimmera Development Association seeks to understand the community's awareness and engagement of the proposed health service amalgamation with Ballarat Health Services.
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The survey seeks to measure whether Wimmera residents understand the potential changes taking place and their involvement in the amalgamation's public consultation process.
This comes after the boards of Wimmera Health Care Group, Stawell Regional Health, Edenhope and District Memorial Hospital, and Ballarat Health Services confirmed a move to bring the proposal before the Department of Health, pending approval.
Wimmera Development Association executive director Chris Sounness said the group wanted to grasp how much the community knew about the plan to assist the state government in addressing community concerns.
"We are just trying to understand where the community is up to in their thoughts about the changes," he said.
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"How they are feeling information-wise, do they have a good understanding of what is going on? If they don't then that will help us work with the community to close that gap."
The online survey takes a couple of minutes to complete and asks the participant basic questions about their involvement in the consultation phase of the proposed amalgamation.
Ages and postcodes will also be recorded.
Mr Sounness said the Wimmera Development Association was interested in how the change would affect the Wimmera job market and career opportunities.
"We are particularly interested obviously, as a region, how we can create opportunities to grow, ensure there are excellent job opportunities going forward.
"That is what we are interested in, how any changes the largest employer in the region may make will affect career opportunities - not only in health services but all of the ancillary services around that.
"How it might affect the region, that is our particular concern. We haven't seen the business case, so we can only look at when other services have joined together in the past."
He said the group would partner with the Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Partnership to relay the survey information to the Victorian government.
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Wimmera Southern Mallee Regional Partnership chair David Jochinke said the survey aimed to determine whether further public consultation on the amalgamation was needed.
"We are trying to find out exactly whether the public knows what exactly is going on, whether we need further consultation and what are the aspects that they want to find out more about," he said.
"Noting that consultation was done well before any business cases were released to the public."
Mr Jochinke said forming a stance on the proposed amalgamation was difficult as the business case put forward to the health department was not available to the public.
He said information on how the healthcare group's business plan was implemented would also be crucial.
"It is hard to gauge someone's opinion on the topic without giving them the details to digest and understand," he said.
"Once again, it is the implementation of the business plan, which is the aspect as a potential patient you want to understand.
"How can anyone support a position when you don't know what the outcome is going to be? It is a really difficult scenario. That is why we are taking a temperature check on the community, what their understanding is."
To fill out the survey, visit the Wimmera Development Association's website.
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