Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that:

(a) the GP Access After Hours service:

(i) has provided over a million urgent after-hours consultations to families in Newcastle and the Hunter region for more than twenty years;

(ii) delivers 50,000 face-to-face appointments and handles 70,000 calls through the nurse led triage call centre each year; and

(iii) saves our health system up to $21.7 million in unnecessary emergency department presentations each year;

(b) due to the Government's continuous cuts to bulk-billing incentives and its failure to adequately index Medicare rebates, Hunter Primary Care has been forced to make cuts to the GP Access After Hours service;

(c) from Christmas Eve, the Calvary Mater Clinic will close completely, and operating hours for clinics at the Belmont Hospital, John Hunter Hospital, Maitland Hospital and Westlakes Community Health Centre will be reduced; and

(d) over 10,000 people from the Hunter region have signed a petition calling on the Government to restore funding to the GP Access After Hours service;

(2) recognises that:

(a) the GP Access After Hours service has been an essential service for tens of thousands of Newcastle and Hunter families who rely upon bulk-billing GP services to access the healthcare they need, when they need it;

(b) with so few bulk-billing doctors in Newcastle and the Hunter region, any further loss of services will have a huge impact on families already faced with high out-of-pocket healthcare costs;

(c) any cuts to this service will dramatically increase pressure on our already overstretched and under-resourced emergency departments; and

(d) not only is the Government's lack of support for primary healthcare unacceptable, it is also grossly irresponsible in the middle of a global pandemic; and

(3) calls on the Government to:

(a) restore the funding to our GP Access After Hours service to stop the closure of the Calvary Mater Clinic and retain existing hours of operation at all remaining clinics;

(b) reverse cuts to bulk-billing incentive payments in the Lower Hunter that have seen GP practices close and vulnerable people left without access to a bulk-billing GP;

(c) abandon any efforts to further reduce funding to our GP Access After Hours service;

(d) provide additional support for GP Access After Hours to expand their services to areas of need throughout the Hunter; and

(e) utilise the success of the GP Access After Hours service as a model of best practice after hours primary healthcare across Australia.

I'm very pleased to move this motion in the Australian parliament today. This is an issue that concerns all of my Labor colleagues in the region because of the brutal reality of the Morrison government's decision to cut our GP Access After Hours service in the Hunter. From Christmas Eve, the after-hours GP service at the Calvary Mater hospital in my electorate will be closing permanently, and operating hours at the four remaining clinics—at the John Hunter Hospital, the Belmont Hospital, the Maitland Hospital and the Toronto Polyclinic—will be significantly reduced.

The Liberal government has a long history of undermining our universal healthcare system. We've had eight long years of savage cuts to Medicare under Liberal governments, including Medicare rebate freezes; the reclassification of most of the Hunter region from being a district of workforce shortage to being a so-called metropolitan area with no GP shortages at all; brutal cuts to our bulk-billing incentive payments which have cost our region some $7 million in lost revenue and the forced closure of many GP clinics; and, earlier this year, almost 1,000 changes to the Medicare Benefits Schedule, resulting in even higher out-of-pocket costs for patients. And now the Calvary Mater hospital after-hours clinic is next on the Morrison government's chopping block.

The Morrison government have made it abundantly clear that they have zero intention of restoring the funding to our GP Access After Hours service, leaving local families just hanging out to dry. But this isn't the only thing they have in store, because the Minister for Health and Aged Care has a review sitting on his desk which, if implemented, would totally gut our GP Access After Hours service, wiping out any hope of retaining an after-hours service as we know it in the Hunter. Abandoning this much-loved service would have a profoundly negative impact for our community and place enormous pressure on our public hospital emergency departments.

Keeping this service fully operational makes good sense from a social and public health policy perspective, but it also makes good economic sense. Sadly, the Morrison government would rather continue the blame game with the New South Wales Liberal government about who should fund primary health services than stop the closure of this essential frontline service. Make no mistake, this is nothing more than a silly finger-pointing exercise. It's buck-passing. It is a classic Morrison government move. Every problem is someone else's fault. Every crisis is someone else's responsibility. It's clear that the Morrison government have absolutely no clue what it's like for sick Novacastrians to try and access affordable health care and it's clear they have no plan for the 15,000 people who will be impacted by these cuts.

Over 11,200 people have already signed my petition, and that number grows every day. Hundreds of people from the community have reached out to me to share their stories of what the service means to them and their families. They've expressed their dismay and disbelief, their frustration and anger, over these cuts. These reckless cuts make no sense to my community. As Sue from my electorate noted in a message to me: 'Last Saturday afternoon, my husband had an accident and badly injured his hand. GP Access After Hours was able to offer him an appointment at the Mater within 30 minutes of calling, and treatment was completed in one hour. Compare that to what would have happened on a Saturday night in emergency, waiting for six hours or more.' Rachel from my electorate said: 'I've used the GP Access After Hours service a few times, and so has my family. It's an excellent service. I have to pay to see a doctor and at times don't always have the cash to pay. With GP Access, there are no wait periods.' Michelle Harvison from Toronto was so outraged when she heard news of government cuts to our GP Access After Hours service. She told me how this service had saved her daughter's life. Her three-year-old daughter's health deteriorated. She went to GP Access first. Without a prescription for the antibiotics and an X-ray from the GPs at the Toronto Polyclinic her daughter's pneumonia would never have been attended to in time.

This government has demonstrated nothing but contempt for the tens of thousands of families like Michelle who will feel the full force of this reckless decision. This government should be listening to the firsthand experiences of local families, GPs and health professionals on the ground who will wear the full brunt of these callous cuts. We cannot allow the public good to be sacrificed for some petty bureaucratic turf war. It is madness to cut a service that is saving the government millions of dollars every year. This government's stubborn refusal to restore funding for our GP Access is pathetic. The GP Access funding shortfall is a drop in the ocean for the Commonwealth's budget, but it has a very large ripple effect. This money must be restored immediately.

Prime Minister, it is time you stepped up and took responsibility to restore this funding for a vital primary healthcare service immediately, because at the end of the day it's the families in the Hunter region who will pay the price for your inaction.

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