Skyrocketing regional airfares hurting patients needing specialist care

Residents and medical professionals say Western Australia's increasing reliance on fly-in, fly-out doctors for specialist care leaves country patients heavily exposed to skyrocketing regional airfares.

An interim report from the Productivity Commission released this week found regional Australians are paying excessive fares to travel within their own state.

The commission found short regional flights were on average 173 per cent more expensive per kilometre than major routes.

The same flights, often only provided by one operator, are used by medical specialists to visit regional areas across WA.

Specialist Centre practice manager Latrice Porter said airfare costs were a growing issue for regional practices.

She said locking in visiting staff for her centre in Albany, 400km south of Perth, was becoming increasingly more difficult.

"Rising airfare costs, limited flight availability, ongoing airline delays and cancellations are significantly increasing the cost of providing specialist outpatient care (in regional WA)," she said.

"The disruptions require clinics to be reorganised, accommodation arrangements amended and patients' schedules adjusted.

While remote healthcare such as telehealth is an option, Ms Porter said it is not fit for an "aging population".

"When we do provide telehealth services, we have a nurse sit in with the patient. It does take one of our staff members out of action," she said.

She believes that if costs keep rising, specialists servicing regional communities will have to start passing the cost of their travel onto patients.

Medical costs a burden on regions

While flights for regional residents are capped under a scheme subsidised by the state government, WA's Patient Assisted Travel Scheme (PATS) provides one of the lowest fuel and accommodation rebates in the country.

The burden is felt particularly heavily in the Pilbara, where Karratha woman Kim Simpson has been a long-time advocate for cheaper flights.

She said the expensive fares placed an unfair burden on regional patients seeking treatment.

"I've got to go have skin cancers cut off my nose, Mohs surgery; they don't do that in Karratha so I've got to go down to Perth," she said.

"If it's something that you could have done in Karratha, but you don't want to wait, then PATS isn't going to cover that, so you've got to cover that fare yourself."

The impact of high airfares on families is also something Ms Simpson sees in the north-west.

"Lots of babies get born in Karratha, and then you want the grandies to come up, and that's going to cost them well over $2,000," she said.

With FIFO mining traffic making Karratha Airport WA's busiest outside Perth, Ms Simpson believes airlines feel they can get away with gouging mining communities.

"We don't all work for mining companies, and it's not fair that they treat everybody as if they're on huge dollars because there are a lot of people in the regions that are not," she said.

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The Productivity Commission's report found a lack of competition and high operating costs combined to push up airfares.

A final report is due in April next year.