The Premiers of NSW and Victoria have announced they will each establish 25 new bulk billing GP clinics to try to ease demand on emergency departments across the two states.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
At a joint announcement in Melbourne, Dominic Perrottet and Daniel Andrews said they would expand urgent care services.
Delivered in partnerships with GPs, 50 new clinics would give people faster care for urgent but non-critical conditions and free up critical ED resources for patients with more serious needs.
Mr Andrews said the services would operate for 16 hours a day, with no patients to be charged for services provided by GPs.
Patients without a Medicare card will also be able to access services, free of charge, he said.
Mr Perrottet said the new model of care would give more people access to free health care.
"Across the country, state and territory health systems are under pressure as a result of the pandemic and we need to boost support so communities can continue to access the care they need," he said.
"We continue to work with the Commonwealth to make sure we have long-term solutions to offer communities first-class healthcare and provide our frontline health workers with the support they need."
Health minister Brad Hazzard said the GP clinic would give the health system "breathing space".
"Our emergency departments are under significant pressure," he said. "Coupled with the ongoing issue of aged care and NDIS patients occupying hospital beds, we needed a measure to help try and relieve demand on our health staff now."
It is unclear how the Illawarra will directly benefit from the state's announcement, with locations of the new bulk billing services to be determined.
The clinics will be commissioned in partnership with Primary Health Networks, with locations determined following consideration of population, community needs and emergency department demand, the government said.
However, Wollongong was one of 13 locations across the state which was promised one of federal Labor's new Urgent Care Clinics.
In May, Alison Byrnes and Stephen Jones announced that a Medicare urgent care clinic would be established in the Illawarra if Labor won the election.
Ms Byrnes said at the time this would be different to the services currently offered under the state health system at Bulli Urgent Care Centre, as the Medicare clinic - like the new clinics announced by the states this week - would be delivered by working with GPs.
In recent months, GP appointments in the Illawarra have become harder to find, with some patients waiting between two to six weeks to see their family doctor.
And, with Medicare rebates failing to keep pace with the costs of running a GP practice, many more clinics in the region have stopped bulk billing.
These long waits and increasing costs are sending more people to overcrowded emergency departments, where some patients who need to be admitted to hospital in Wollongong have been left waiting for a bed for up to four days.
Patients with less urgent conditions, who have nowhere else to go for treatment, are also left waiting hours for treatment.
With states responsible for hospitals and the federal government in charge of primary care and Medicare rebates, Mr Perrottet said the two systems were "working against each other" and needed reform.
"We are not here to pass the buck and shift the blame to the federal government," he said.
We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on the Illawarra Mercury website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. Sign up for a subscription here.