Cobar mayor Jarrod Marsden told an inquiry into state health he's heard "horror stories" of local patients after being flown in to Dubbo for emergency treatment. 

Mr Marsden and Cobar Shire's Director of Corporate and Community Service, Kylie Smith,  joined the inquiry in Broken Hill via video link Wednesday afternoon on 22 May to speak at a hearing for the Special Commission of Inquiry into Healthcare Funding, which is reviewing how NSW funds health services. 

Mr Marsden said community members have approached him describing a "tyranny of distance" for relatives trying to get home after being transferred to Dubbo for treatment.  

"In a very general sense, if I go down the street on a Saturday morning I'll be approached by a ratepayer who'll tell me horror stories about their wife or their mother or their daughter when they're flown out to Dubbo and they're discharged at two o'clock in the morning and having to find their own way home," Mr Marsden said. 

"And if you've been flown out as an emergency, you're in the clothes that you're wearing. It's not a great situation when you're 300 kilometers from home with no train service. Basically, you wait until two o'clock in the afternoon when the bus leaves."  

Ms Smith also said the council-owned and operated Lilliane Brady Village aged care facility is facing a worrying deficit with increasing costs. 

"One of the major costs is staffing obviously due to changes in leglative requirement and the increased cost to staffing," Ms Smith said.  

"Council is very concerned to make sure that we do meet our accreditation requirements as per our funding agreement and to ensure that the residents of the village are provided with the appropriate level of care. 

"That comes as a financial cost, and we're seeing that cost increasingly escalate as well with our regional inflation. So, there's difficultly attracting staff, needing to move to an agency model which we are trying to move away from." 

Ms Smith and Cr Marsden. IMAGE: Special Commission of Inquiry into healthcare funding (screenshot)

Mr Marsden said Cobar Shire projects the facility, which is helped by funding from the Federal Government, will run a $1.3 deficit for the current financial year.  

"Up until year recently, depending on the amount of high care, high dependency patients that were in facility, some years Council would make a bit of money, some years Council would lose a bit of money." 

"All in all, as a long-term projection, the village was always sort of a break even and Council was happy to operate in that situation." 

"It's only been the last probably two years we've seen the growth of the deficit to the point where it is now." 

Mr Marsden said the deficit is not currently affecting council rates, but it could hit the shire coffers. 

"At the moment we're in a position where, if we can't secure extra funding federally and cover that number, Council will either review it's position of operating this facility or crunch the numbers and other areas of the budget will have to suffer to cover the shortfall." 

He said he also wants further state or federal funding to cover some of the cost of outreach medical services.  

"We are required to provide eight hours of physiotherapy to our aged-care facility patients. We don't have a physio in Cobar so we have to get one out of Dubbo. 

"Now, they spend the day travelling, they spend eight hours delivering the physio and then they spend the day driving home. So, we pay the physio three days a week. 

"That gap that we have to pay for travel and accommodation, that's the funding that we need to cover we that we can bring ourselves up." 

"We would be looking for separate and, I guess, special at either state, or even federally."  

The NSW government announced the inquiry in August 2023, aimed at finding ways to deliver better patient care. 

The inquiry has since held hearings in Sydney, Wagga Wagga, Dubbo and now Broken Hill.  

The inquiry had been slated to hand down it's report by 24 August 2024, although the government extended the deadline in February this year to 26 March 2025.