Dr Tanvir Kapoor’s comments (“More care for utes than health” 30/11) reflect a much broader systemic failure – not a lack of concern among rural men, but a health system that fails to meet them where they are.
It’s true that young men in the bush will service their utes religiously. They depend on them and understand the consequences of neglect. For health, we’ve never built the same sense of ownership, ease or immediacy. Rural men aren’t avoiding care because they don’t care, they’re avoiding long waits, long drives, and the fear of being judged in small communities.
If we want young men to show up earlier, we must remove friction, normalise help-seeking, and bring care into trusted local environments, the same way rural communities have built acceptance around mental health, farm safety, and road safety over the last decade.
Rural men aren’t disengaged from their health, they’re disengaged from a system that wasn’t designed around the realities of regional life. If you work 12-hour shifts, live 90 minutes from a clinic, and don’t have a GP you know or trust, the idea of “just going in” simply doesn’t reflect how care works outside the cities.
We need to shift from episodic, clinic-centric healthcare to continuity-based, community-embedded models, where care can reach people where they live and work.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) model shows this works, with consistent clinicians, outreach clinics, and place-based trust building. We need to extend these principles across regional Australia so early intervention becomes the norm rather than the exception.
Australia doesn’t have a rural men’s health problem – we have a rural access problem.
The data shows rural men tend to present late, often only to emergency departments, because earlier pathways simply aren’t visible, convenient or consistent.
The next wave of innovation needs to combine trusted clinicians who are seen regularly, not sporadically; local hubs in towns, farms and workplaces where care is easy and discreet;
and connected digital tools to close distance without losing continuity.
When we make care familiar, local and low-friction, men engage. When we don’t, they wait until the crisis hits. Redesigning access is not optional – it’s urgent.
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