Federal Government has announced new bulk billed urgent care clinic in Hobart
The federal government has announced a new bulk billed urgent care clinic will be set up in Hobart’s northern suburbs, the fifth practice in the state. The Tasmanian government says the commitment isn't enough with another four clinics needed. While health stakeholders say the focus should be on other parts of the ailing health system instead.
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00:00 Tasmania's four urgent care clinics have been visited more than 25,000 times in less than
00:07 a year. This Hobart clinic sees 30 patients a day.
00:11 About 80% of those people would have gone to the emergency department if they had not
00:15 received care in the urgent care clinic.
00:17 The Federal Health Minister is selling last week's budget commitment to build 29 more
00:21 clinics around the country. Tasmania gets one of those in the Hobart suburb of Bridgewater.
00:27 People from the northern suburbs more generally, we know how badly affected they are by chronic
00:32 health conditions.
00:33 The state government says the announcement falls well short of the five clinics Tasmania
00:38 needs.
00:38 They're good, but it's not enough, we need more and that's a way that the Federal Government
00:43 can and should be actually using the Medicare system to support people in our communities.
00:48 Well, the question really is why do we need urgent care clinics in the first place and
00:52 it's to do with the underfunding of general practice for many years.
00:55 This is part of a $28 million package. Tasmania receives more than its fair share in population
01:02 terms out of the funding that we provided in last week's budget.
01:07 The Federal Government package includes funding to help get patients out of hospital and into
01:11 aged care or the National Disability Insurance Scheme. But health stakeholders say it doesn't
01:16 go far enough to attract general practitioners to regional Tasmania.
01:21 I think that there needs to be a review of what rural practices are and not just setting
01:25 up another urgent care practice that then takes away the local doctor that was trying
01:32 to do their thing.
01:33 We need our junior doctors to stay in Tasmania, we need to train more GPs in Tasmania and
01:37 then we need them to be able to be promoted and encouraged and supported when they move
01:41 regionally.
01:42 We've got to invest more funds, we've got to be cleverer about the way in which general
01:45 practice interacts with the hospital system.
01:48 A plan to make all parts of the health system stronger.
01:52 [end]
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