New urgent care clinics won’t compete with existing practices, the health minister insists, as staff shortages continue to plague Australia’s medical sector.
Expressions of interest are being sought for the operation of seven centres in Western Australia designed to take pressure off emergency departments.
The Albanese government is planning to open 50 bulk-billed clinics across the nation and expects to have three Perth-based facilities open by July.
It comes amid calls from state and territory leaders, who will discuss a report by the Medicare task force at Friday’s national cabinet meeting, for the Commonwealth to provide more hospital funding and increase rebates.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the urgent care clinics would stay open until 10 p.m. and alleviate pressures on hospitals by catering to walk-in patients.
“The cases that are going to come to an urgent care centre are going to be dealt with somewhere,” he told reporters in Perth on Wednesday.
“They might not be life-threatening emergencies, but they are emergencies that have to be cared for, either in an existing GP practice or, more likely, in a hospital emergency department.”
Some doctors might split their shifts between regular practice and urgent care, he added.
“What we’ve been very clear not to do is to build new clinics that will be operating or setting up in competition with existing practices,” he said.
Australian Medical Association WA president Mark Duncan-Smith cast doubt on whether the clinics would make a substantial difference to hospital bottlenecks.
“They may have the unintended consequence of actually putting local GP practices out of business,” he said.
“The walking wounded-type patients that will go to urgent care clinics are already seen very quickly in emergency departments ... they don’t take up beds, they don’t cause bed block and they don’t cause ramping.”
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews urged the Commonwealth to increase bulk-billing rates, saying patients were winding up in hospitals after being failed by primary care.
“It’s not our job. We’re essentially doing some of the federal government’s work for them,” he said.
WA Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said her state had the lowest number of GPs per capita of any state or territory.
“As a result, we get the least amount of Medicare rebate,” she said.
“It’s important that we increase that.”
Liberal Senator Michaelia Cash said WA was facing a health workforce crisis, and the government had not explained how it would staff the new facilities.
