Free access to healthcare is not a right in Australia, but it has been taken for granted over the decades.
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The country prides itself in providing 'free or low-cost access for all Australians to use most health care services'. However, new figures released today following a survey of 6000 GP clinics nationwide show that free access is now only for a select minority.
Only three of 47 GPs between Helensburgh and Warrawong offer fully subsidised visits, according to the report from Cleanbill.
In fact, less than one in ten GPs in the northern Illawarra now offer bulk-billing to adult patients.
To put this in context, we're seventh worst in New South Wales based upon accessibility to free at-the-point-of-service health care. It's worth noting that Newcastle, shockingly, has no bulk-billing general practitioners.
Professor Charlotte Hespe from the Royal Australian College of GPs agrees that 'this is not a doctors being greedy problem', but rather the knock-on effect of Medicare Benefits Scheme (MBS) rebates being frozen for the last decade.
The increase in practices dropping bulk-billing has been well recorded, with some GPs in the Illawarra saying the current Medicare rebate is not keeping up with the increased costs of running a surgery.
In December, the Illawarra Mercury reported on the closure of several local medical centres, including Dr Robert Yarrow's Fairy Meadow practice, which had been in operation since 1974.
Dr Yarrow backed up Ms Hespe's comments and said the federal government's decision to freeze the rebate in 2012 had gradually eroded the viability of running a medical practice.
The reality is there is no quick fix to a way out of the problem. There are no commitments from the Albanese government (so far) to increase the rebate, and rather the government is looking at Medicare reform, with details to come down the track.
For good or bad, it means in the short term, households not only need to budget for the increased cost of living brought on by rising food, fuel, clothing and electricity costs but will also need to start a rainy-day savings pot to ensure they can afford to see a doctor.
- Gayle Tomlinson
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