By Mikayla van Loon, with AAP
Lilydale has been flagged as a potential location for an urgent care clinic in a more than $600 million funding pledge from the Labor government if re-elected.
The expansion of the existing 87 clinics by a further 50, including 12 in Victoria, would aim to be delivered by the end of June 2026.
Labor has released a list of target areas, in which Lilydale is one, but the final sites would be decided independently.
Medicare urgent care clinics offer free care by GPs or nurses for non life-threatening conditions or injuries, and were initially set up to take pressure off public hospitals.
Treatment is offered for minor injuries – cuts, basic fractures, burns, suturing and bandaging and foreign objects in ears, nose or throat; or minor illnesses – bronchitis, rashes, gastro, first trimester pregnancy bleeding or ear, nose, throat and eye infections.
One in three patients are under 15.
“This announcement of 50 additional urgent care clinics, if we are re-elected, will provide the urgent care people need – and all you will need is your Medicare card, not your credit card,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Sunday 2 March.
Should the new clinics be added, about 80 per cent – or four in five – Australians “will live” within a 20-minute drive of one of 137 facilities, according to the Department of Health and Aged Care.
Urgent care clinics were a major part of the Albanese Labor Government’s platform in its first term. The Liberal opposition also threw its support behind the walk-in, bulk-billed clinics.
Opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said the coalition supported increasing bulk billing rates through urgent care clinics after Sunday’s announcement.
”We recognise the clear need for better access to urgent bulk billed services,” she said.
“A Dutton coalition government will deliver urgent care clinics as they were intended: focused on relieving pressure on local hospitals and providing real access to bulk billed urgent healthcare.”
Casey MP Aaron Violi, in the lead up to the 2024-25 budget, advocated for a clinic in his electorate, specifically the Yarra Ranges.
“Local residents have little option when it comes to urgent healthcare. Travelling over an hour to a stretched emergency room or struggling to find a bulk-billed GP appointment isn’t good enough,” he told Star Mail in April 2024.
Labor announced that 29 new clinics would be funded in the 2024-25 budget but Mr Violi claimed the seven in Victoria were just rebranded from priority care to urgent care clinics, shifting the funding responsibility from State to Federal government.
“Disappointingly, Labor’s announcement of 29 clinics delivered nothing in terms of increased access to healthcare for our community,” he said.
Mr Violi confirmed his party still supported the roll out of bulk billed urgent healthcare for Australians and his community.
“There is not one emergency department in our community and bulk billing has fallen from 87.1 per cent under the Coalition to 73.3 per cent under Labor. It is clear our community needs better access to healthcare,” he said.
“The Coalition is committed to addressing Labor’s primary care crisis and ensuring all Australians, no matter where they live, have timely and affordable access to essential healthcare.”
Despite being critical of the Labor Government’s bulk billing figures, the Coalition’s record in freezing Medicare rebates from 2014 to 2020, with a phased lifting of the freeze from 2017, did hike up the costs for medical professionals to run a clinic, according to The Conversation in 2019.
“The freeze means those medical professionals who have not seen it lifted are reimbursed the same for delivering health services today as they were in 2014,” The Conversation’s article reads.
The lingering impact of the rebate freeze, and added inflation, filtered down to local GP clinics years later, with many choosing in 2022 to convert their services from bulk billed to mixed billing.
Lilydale Doctors and Mount Evelyn Doctors owner Dr Binay Kumar attempted to delay the change from bulk billing to mixed private billing as long as possible but had to make the difficult decision that came into effect as of 1 August 2022 to charge $30 per visit.
“Everyone knows inflation has gone up tremendously, everything is more expensive but probably what no one knows is for us Medicare rebates, for GP’s, were frozen from 2014 to 2020,” Dr Kumar told Star Mail in 2022.
“So for six or seven years, we didn’t really have any increase at all in any rebate that we were getting.”
Mooroolbark Super Clinic and Lakeside Medical Centre in Lilydale followed suit, adjusting their billing model by 1 September 2022.
The Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP), however, questioned the suitability of rolling out more urgent care clinics without clear evidence of how they are benefiting patients.
“We are now seeing more than $1 billion will be spent on setting up these clinics, and we still have no sign of an evaluation to show whether they are providing value for money, or helping people keep away from hospital,” RACGP President Dr Michael Wright said.
Dr Wright argues the money would be better spent funding existing general practices, including to extend hours of care, rather than setting up new clinics.
“This will result in better health outcomes, as people will be able to access urgent care from their usual practice, which has their medical history, and supports their continuity of care,” he said.
“Spending millions setting up new clinics is not value for taxpayers’ money. There are reports that each visit to an urgent care clinic costs approximately $200 per head.
“This is cheaper than a visit to a hospital emergency department, but it’s far more expensive than if the patient is treated by a GP, which for a standard consult costs a little over $42.”
The urgent care pledge followed the bipartisan announcement, first made by Labor and matched by the Liberals, of $8.5 billion in Medicare funding over four years.
