Long distances, high costs: Report reveals barriers to women’s healthcare in West Vic

Twenty-eight percent of women in south west Victoria who sought an abortion say they could not access one locally. 

For many, that meant driving hours, taking time off work and paying for childcare just to reach basic health services.

What happened: A new report, From Both Sides of the Door, was released by Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West last week, following a 2025 survey with more than 450 women, gender diverse people and healthcare providers across the region.

What did it find? Distance, affordability, long wait times and a lack of available services were among the biggest barriers preventing people from accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare in West Vic.

• Patients in areas including Glenelg, Southern Grampians, Corangamite and Colac Otway reported travelling more than an hour each way for appointments, with extra costs including fuel, childcare and time off work making access even harder.

• Twenty-four percent of people living with chronic conditions also could not access services locally.

What do local services think? Healthcare providers told researchers the system itself was under pressure, making it difficult to deliver the level of care patients needed. 

• Practitioners said the standard 15-minute appointments were often not long enough to manage complex women’s health issues.

• They also reported challenges coordinating care, managing referrals and keeping up with the latest medical guidelines in rural areas where access to training and professional development was limited.

Major cost barriers: Only 40 percent of people with chronic conditions said care was affordable, while 54 percent said contraception was affordable.

• GPs were the main source of sexual and reproductive health information for 85 percent of respondents, but many reported difficulty getting an appointment due to a shortage of GPs, particularly female GPs and those with an interest in women’s health.

• While most people accessed maternal and child health services, less than half accessed women’s physiotherapy and just 33 percent accessed postpartum mental health support.

Knowledge gaps: Awareness of where to access services was also low, with only 32 percent knowing where to get menopause support, 40 percent knowing where to receive a medical termination of pregnancy and 45 percent knowing where to access support for chronic conditions.

• The report found many patients also felt their symptoms were dismissed or not taken seriously, particularly when seeking help for pain, leading to delays in diagnosis and treatment.

A silver lining: Practitioners said telehealth, visiting specialists and nurse-led women’s health services were helping improve access in rural areas, but said more investment in these models would be needed to meet demand.