A hearing for the ongoing inquiry was held in Wellington last week, with council's director of planning and councillor Warren Aubin attending to represent Bathurst.

The hearing was allowed to go overtime due to the quality of the testimonies, and the chair of the meeting flagged the possibility of obtaining further information after the conclusion of the hearing.

READ MORE: Bathurst health: Parliamentary inquiry hears of medical practitioner and service shortages

Cr Aubin said council is now preparing a secondary submission to the inquiry, which will expand on some of the points raised at the hearing.

"We're making another submission - because we're allowed to, we've got a couple of weeks to put in a post-submission to the inquiry - of things we didn't get a chance to get out there [at the hearing]," he said.

"I had a few pages noted out and I didn't get halfway through mine, so we've got quite a bit there that we've still got to put in another submission, and they're quite willing to take those on board because they know we had limited time."

The new submission will include additional stories of experiences with the Bathurst Health Service.

"In our additional submission, basically we've got a few more submissions from people and what's happened to them, their stories," Cr Aubin said.

"We've got a couple of doctors that have sent some letters in talking about problems in the hospital, which are hard-hitting and very, very well-written, so we're going to include those."

Council also plans to include data that explains the health professional and service shortages in Bathurst.

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Although council didn't get to address everything it had hoped to, Cr Aubin said he was happy with how the hearing went.

"We got our point across; the fact that Bathurst is way behind on funding compared to Orange and Dubbo, the fact that the budget for the Bathurst Hospital is $88 million a year, whereas Dubbo is $138 million and Orange is $151 million, and the fact that there's $93 million in the coffers of the bureaucrats who run the LHD, so basically the wages and the governance of the local health district gets more money than Bathurst hospital," he said.

The parliamentary inquiry commenced on September 16, 2020 and received in excess of 700 written submissions. Hearings have been held since March and further hearings are scheduled for various dates in 2021.

Cr Aubin is not sure when the parliamentary inquiry will conclude, or what the eventual outcomes will be, but said council will be "waiting with bated breath".

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