Health in the Hawkesbury
The Hawkesbury Local Government Area (LGA) is located 55 kms north-west of Sydney CBD, within the Hawkesbury River Valley.
It is the largest LGA area in the Sydney basin with an area of approximately 2800 square kms. The area is divided by 5 rivers and about 70% of the LGA is covered by national parks.
The Hawkesbury has an estimated population of 67,581. [source: Hawkesbury City Community Profile ID]
Health Statistics
Some key statistics pertaining to the health of the Hawkesbury area include:
- Median age is 39 years
- 22.7% of people are 60 years or older
- More residents work in construction than any other industry
- 13% of people were born overseas and 7% spoke a language other than English at home
- 21% single person households
- 3.2% unemployment rate
- The childhood immunisation rate is 82.05%
- The most prevalent diagnoses are hypertension (16.2%), hyperlipidaemia (14.9%), anxiety (11.2%), asthma (11.2%) and depression (6.4%)
- 62.3% of residents are overweight or obese10.4% of residents are daily or irregular smokers
- There are 27 general practices and 15 community pharmacies.
Health Priorities
- Transport difficulties - time, costs and parking issues involved in travelling to and from health care services
- Aged care services - shortage of resources and aged care bed
- Workforce challenges - shortage of healthcare providers
- Access to information - low knowledge of services and where to go to get information
- Mental health services - shortage of services
- Impact of flood and bushfire on access to health care - inadequate disaster planning for health services and access to emergency services west of the river
- Cancer treatment – long distance and impractical travel to access services
- Carer respite and support - limited resources
- Boundaries and accessing health services in other areas
- Cumulative trauma from multiple natural disasters
- Mental health concerns of young people and culturally diverse people - these have increased because of natural disasters
