PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Well, I'm Pat Conroy. I'm the Federal Member for Shortland, and I'm joined here by Sharon Claydon, the awesome Member for Newcastle and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives. We're here at Charlestown Medicare Urgent Care Clinic to celebrate the first anniversary of this important health service. This is a clinic that the community was crying out for. It was a key part of our health initiatives that we took to the 22 election, that we continue to end the 25 election, this clinic has seen almost 20,000 patients in its first 12 months of operation, which means 20 almost 20,000 fewer visits to emergency departments, almost 20,000 bulk-billed visits for patients in our community. This has been tremendously successful from day one, so successful that we've extended the hours of it, and we took to the last election a commitment to increase the number of doctors and nurses so could see even more patients. So funding is flowing so that we can put on an extra doctor, an extra nurse at peak times, and that means, effectively, between nine and 6pm so between 9am and 6pm at night, there is two doctors instead of one, and two nurses instead of one, and that means more patients being seen more quickly in our community. And to give you an idea of the scale of who this clinic is seeing, more than one in four of the people being seen are under the age of 15. So more than one in four are kids. More than one in four are being seen on weekends, when it's really tough to getting to see your normal GP, and more than one in four of the weekday visits are after hours, so after 5pm this is a clinic where families can see a doctor for free. They can see a doctor urgently, they can see a doctor after hours, and they can see a doctor on the weekend. And this is just one example of the record investment the Albanese government is making in Medicare, because it's the bedrock of our entire health system. I'll hand over to Sharon to make some comments.
SHARON CLAYDON, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR NEWCASTLE: It's a great day for our region. Indeed. Celebration of the first anniversary of the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is absolutely worthy of celebrating. It's been a real game changer for people in our region. Before we took office, there was just our public hospital system was at capacity. Our bulk billing rates were plummeting in this region, and that's still tough. So places like the Urgent Care Clinic have been just absolutely critical to being able to ensure quality healthcare is delivered to everyone who needs it. This is a fully bulk build clinic dealing with all of those cases that we do not want to see presenting at emergency departments in hospitals. This is 20,000 people have been taken off those hospital ramps. This is a phenomenal outcome, and in recognition of the extraordinary work done by clinics like Medicare, urgent care clinic here in Charlestown, the government has provided additional boosting funding, and that has been important to really double capacity here, and to ensure that we are servicing people at those really peak times we're just about to come up to Christmas. What a great gift to the people of our region is to give this additional boost of funding to ensure that Medicare Urgent Care Clinics can do the work that they're set up to do. We know the needs there, and we're meeting those needs. I've got constituents, and I'm sure Pat would as well, where they have said to me, this has literally saved my life, presenting at the urgent clinic for one issue and then actually finding out there was a dire need to attend to some other health issues. So you know parents who just say to me, you know, it's a miracle. It's their Christmas miracle last year, and I'm sure it will be again this year. It's really particularly people with young children. We know those gifts under the Christmas tree are not always risk free, and you're going to have kids falling off skateboards and new bicycles. These are the clinics that are going to take those injuries over the summer. Because you know what? Kids don't fall sick between nine and five rarely do, and often when there's one down, there's multiple down in your family.
JOURNALIST: So clinics like this are critical to ensuring access to quality primary health care, and you're able to do questions now, just in terms of that reduction, hopefully on the on the wait list at emergency departments, they're still pretty full at John Hunter, that the wait list, as well as Maitland hospital. What else do you think can be done on top of the. Do you think there needs to be more urgent care clinics in a hunter, or do you think, you know, another hospital? What else do you think could be a solution?
SHARON CLAYDON, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR NEWCASTLE: There are, well, there are additional urgent care clinics that will be stood up in the region. That's absolutely helping. You know, public hospitals. You know, I know the state government's trying to turn its mind to figuring out how to ensure that there's that they've properly functioning to be able to meet the needs of our communities. But just without, you know, 20,000 people have taken pressure off that hospital system with this one clinical owner, we've got five clinics stood up in here, and there'll be more to come. We clearly need to ensure that access to primary health care is, is, is. You know, that is a critical part of keeping people who are inappropriately lining up at hospitals out of that system. So, with the Albanese labor government's first active week was to save GP access after palace. We've got five clinics set up in five hospitals and the poly clinic at Toronto to divert people away from hospital systems. We've stood up these Medicare urgent care clinics where, you know, tripling, bulking incentives for GPS. Now, you know, and they, which has been a challenge in this region, you know, they're slowly taking that up. You know, really celebrated doctors like Dr Singh at Mayfield, who's converted her practice to a fully fulfilling practice. Now, that is awesome. I hope many more GPs follow, because it is having shoring up that primary health care system to to prevent people from inappropriately presenting the hospital in the first place.
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Just add a couple points. I think that record investment in Medicare will make an impact. So more people are able to see bulk billing doctors, means fewer presentations at hospitals. As Sharon said, 20,000 visits here means 20,000 fewer visits to the emergency department, and the impact is powerful. Over half the presentations to the emergency department of John Hunter are for what's called category four and category five cases. They are semi urgent and non urgent cases where people are going there because they can't see their regular doctor. This is what the urgent care clinics are designed to help you, and it's making a real impact right now. I was talking to an elderly couple down at blacksmith speech on Sunday, and they were telling me, instead of spending six hours in the emergency department, John Hunter, they came up here and were saying, within 40 minutes, their issue was addressed, and they were back home. And that's great for them, because they lose pressure on the hospitals, and it's also cheaper for taxpayers because the emergency department emergency department is a lot more expensive to run than this urgent care clinic.
JOURNALIST: How many more people do you think you can see on an annual basis with this second doctor?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Well, the maths is pretty strong like this is one of the busiest clinics in the entire country, and I'll acknowledge the ForHealth group who's running it. So being able to double the capacity of that peak times will literally mean we'll go from 50 or 60 consultations a day to well above that. And then you can do the multiplication over the years. So that's really powerful. So as I said, just under 20,000 a year. So you can think about that will literally be 1000s more patients seen each year because of the extra doctor and the extra practitioner, Nursenurse practitioner.
JOURNALIST: And what's the cost for the budget?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: For the total package across the multiple clinics is eight and a half million dollars. So we haven't broken it down across the high priority clinics, but it's part of an eight and a half million dollar package for Medicare urgent care clinics.
JOURNALIST: Is there a certain cost that goes towards this funding and getting extra doctors?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: It's a payment we'll pay to the the operators of this clinic to put on the extra doctor and nurse. I'll applaud the clinic and PHN, the primary healthcare network. They saw the demand, and the PHN was able to find short term funding to do this in advance of securing that extra funding, because the demand was great, like where it's both a good and bad thing that this is one of the busiest clinics in the state, but the demand was there. The PHN stepped up, and the federal government, through Sharon and I, made an election commitment that we would provide this funding to double the doctors and double the nurses.
JOURNALIST: Speak about other locations you'd like to see clinics in the hunter. Is there any particular places you recommend?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Well, we made an announcement that there'll be one going into Paterson, from memory of Maitland. Yeah, so there's additional one going there. There's a one at Cessnock. We've got one at Lake Haven on the northern Central Coast that will leave pressure on both Wyong Hospital and the John Hunter. So we've got that. And when then we've got the GP Access After Hours that is unique to the Hunter, that complements this, because this is no appointment throughout the entire day. The after hours service is by appointment and goes longer into the night. So they complement each other, and it's really a good network of after hours and emergency GP clinics. And was it Port Stephens or Paterson? Did you say? Well, it's within Paterson, the electorate of Paterson.
JOURNALIST: Would that be in the next year? Like, do you know?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Yeah, the rollout, the rollout for the next clinics, is happening right now. So you can expect they move pretty quickly. Like, we struggle to keep up with announcing these clinics being founded before it started operating, so they moved quickly, and this is a real advance on the earlier models where you built a clinic. Here we've looked at clinics that have capacity to expand, so that's much faster. And this has been complemented also by a record investment in mental health. So very soon, we'll announce a location for the Charlestown mental health Medicare urgent care clinic that will complement this clinic focusing on mental health.
JOURNALIST: You spoke about how important, how popular this has been. I mean, is it option to even go to three doctors or more down the track?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Well, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Let's see how we go here first. But it is phenomenally popular. It's getting out there. So just to go back to the earlier question I've heard from nurses at the John Hunter emergency department, they're handing out flyers for the clinic. They're telling people, and this is a good thing, that they're telling people who are coming in, who could see a GP come, go here instead. So we'll track the demand. The Albanese government's making a record investment in primary health care. If a case is made in the future, then obviously we will consider it. But today, we're celebrating the doubling the doctors and nurses and what is one of the busiest clinics in the country, and a real asset for our region.
JOURNALIST: Is there any issue with GP's? Are they how are they feeling about this? Spoke in the past about, you know, worried that it's going to take patients away from general practice clinics.
SHARON CLAYDON, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR NEWCASTLE: There's this clinic is a really great example of how you expand the poor GP's, not to take away from an existing pool. So there's been some overseas doctors have been coming in. They've expanded the workforce just recently to include paramedics, you know, and this is so you've got nurse practitioners, GP's, paramedics, people in their specialized fields. This is a really attractive workplace for a lot of people in the medical workforce. So, you know, it's about increasing that pool, giving people in the medical workforces more options for work as well. I think it's a great thing, and it's a really attractive model for a lot of people working in health.
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: And if I can just add this doesn't take work away, we get jobs done that can't be done by a regular doctor when I don't like I joke, you almost need to have a time machine, because you don't be sick in three weeks time to make an appointment with your normal doctor. The way this system works is only urgent cases are seen. So if it's something that can wait for your normal doctor, you'll you'll be suggested to make an appointment with your normal doctor. So this is, as I said, one in four visits are after five o'clock when most GP clinics are closed. One in four visits are on weekends when most GP clinics are certainly closed on Sundays, most of them. So this is actually taking pressure off those GP clinics, as well as the hospitals, and it complements what we're doing with our eight and a half billion dollar investment in tripling the Medicare bulk billing incentive, working well together, this is filling it a gap that is there, and it's life changing. As Sharon said, people's lives have been saved by coming up here when they couldn't see their normal doctor.
JOURNALIST: Is there any modeling on this, on the wait times for the clinician?
PAT CONROY, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Well, ForHealth, can probably give you an answer about the average wait time. But in the past, I've been told that the average wait time is around 80 to 90 minutes getting a nod that that's probably still about accurate, and you should compare that to five hours, possibly eight hours in the emergency department. And the thing I urge people is, while you can't make appointments, give the front desk a call and they'll give you a good estimation of how long the wait time is, so you can make a decision. But as I said, this elderly couple, they rang up on when on the weekend, they got told it was about a 45 minute wait. They came up. They actually seen within 30 minutes, and it is life changing. People are in and out. They see a doctor or a nurse and they get attended to, and it's great for our community. And this is one of the most important things the federal government can do. It's investing in the health of our population, and that's what the Albanese Labor Government will always do. Thanks very much.
