Feel like everyone around you is sick? Well it's been the worst flu season on record.

BY LAUREN FREEMANTLE and JESSICA ROUSE

It's been confirmed: NSW has just recorded its worst flu season on record, with 64 more cases than last year reported across the Hunter New England region.

In the Hunter alone 3,300 cases have been reported.

There are four strains of the virus circulating the country, with almost half of all national sufferers in NSW. It's thought that because of international travel, strains can travel around the world more easily - when there's an outbreak in the southern hemisphere, it almost certainly travels to the northern hemisphere.

Shadow Health Minister Walt Secord says people suffering from flu symptoms are clogging up our hospital systems more and more.

"Emergency departments should be for heart attacks, car accidents, major trauma so when people get really really sick from the flu it puts an impact on our emergency departments and we have a situation where emergency departments around the state are at breaking point - I know that Calvary Mater Hospital has had a particularly difficult time with the flu season this year."

Walt Secord says our hospitals are struggling to meet demand and in the Hunter New England there are more flu-related ambulance arrivals than in Central Sydney.

"The Berejiklian government was caught completely unprepared - the outbreaks have put enormous pressure on the hospital system when they could have in fact embarked on a vaccination program to encourage people to get their vaccinations. So next year lets hope they get a vaccination program started around May so we can avoid this - the last thing we want to see is our hospitals chock full of people with flu symptoms."

New Maitland Hospital Under Fire from Labor

BY TYLER FARDELL

The new Maitland hospital to be built at Metford has had a rocky road already and now the NSW State opposition is threatening to scrap the plans for the hospital.

Shadow Health Minister Walt Secord said in parliament yesterday they would discontinue the hospital's plans if they were elected.

The calls have angered many in the region, including Parliamentary Secretary for the Hunter Scot Macdonald.

"I'm very concerned about this", he said. "They've injected a new level of uncertainty and possible delay into the project".

Mr Macdonald has called upon the Opposition leader Luke Foley to stand Mr Secord aside, saying he represents a real risk to health infrastructure.

"It is simply a disaster for Maitland and demonstrates again, the opposition will put politics before health and the community every time".

Hon Walt Secord

Ice-related deaths doubled in regional areas

BY JESSICA ROUSE

Regional and rural areas are at the top of the list of being the worst for drug related deaths including here in the Hunter.

Research compiled by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has found methamphetamine-related deaths in Australia have doubled between 2009 and 2015.

Shadow Health Minister Walt Secord is calling on the Berejiklian government to hold a drug summit at State Parliament to discuss challenges and possible new treatment measures for drug use and overdose particularly involving the drug ice.

The research also found 43 per cent of ice-related deaths were from overdose and 41 per cent of them were in regional and rural areas.

Shadow Health Minister Walt Secord
Image @WaltSecordMLC

Walt Secord says it's been nearly 18 years since the last drug summit and too much has changed for current measures to combat drug usage to still be applicable.

"Drug use in NSW and Australia has significantly changed over the last two decades - ice has replaced heroin, and I think it's time that we do new approaches to the challenges particularly in rural and regional areas."

He also says he's seeing firsthand how bad drug-related problems, particularly with ice are getting, with his shadow ministerial office receiving letters, emails and telephone calls from the parents of young people addicted to ice on a regular basis. 

Walt Secord says it's time to gather experts together to find better solutions and better treatments. 

"Drug use in NSW has significantly changed since the last drug summit. At that time we brought together family members, judges, doctors, medical experts, paramedics, everyone involved in that sector - we all came together and people with good will all worked together."