Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I extend an invitation to the health minister to visit the GP Plus Super Clinic at Modbury, a facility that is improving access to doctors and health services for residents in Makin. This superclinic provides bulk billing services to local patients as part of the previous government's support for universal access to health care—something that will end under this government as it goes about destroying Medicare.

The clinic provides a range of health services, including GP services, modern public dental services for adults and children, chronic disease management and specialist clinical services for diabetes, wounds, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease management, heart failure and respiratory and orthopaedic health issues. The clinic also provides allied health services, including exercise physiology, physiotherapy, podiatry, social work, psychology, diabetes nurse education and dietetics.

These services were previously not available under one roof and have been making a tangible benefit to the health of patients for several years now. The superclinic is removing demand and pressure on the nearby Modbury hospital and easing demand on the hospital's emergency department, which is precisely what GP superclinics were intended to do. If the health minister wants to see firsthand evidence of the benefit of Labor's GP superclinic program, he is welcome to visit the GP Plus Super Clinic at Modbury.