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98 Business View Australia - January-February 2016
HEALTHCARE
these groups allows participants
who have expertise in a particular
domain to contribute towards its de-
velopment. The groups also serve
to generate discussions on areas of
common interest of the members
and to enable them to work towards
the framing of policy positions and
papers.
There are SIGs that concentrate
on issues such as women’s health,
primary health care, mental health,
immunisation, food and nutrition,
ecology and environment, and child
health. The SIGs also organise
events, encourage participation in
advocacy activities and have discus-
sion forums on which members can
exchange views.
An extremely important cause that
the PHAA takes up is to ensure that
adequate funds are allocated by the
government towards public health.
The association is of the firm be-
lief that a high degree of attention
should be paid to preventive meas-
ures, so that over a period of time
the incidence of chronic diseases is
reduced and expenditure on acute
care falls as a result of this.
Recently, large reductions have
been made in the government’s
budget for the health sector. This