Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The people of the Shortland electorate and the broader Hunter and Central Coast regions are suffering because of the Liberals' ongoing attacks on our health system. My constituents already have difficulty in finding a GP and getting an appointment. Bulk-billing has become a thing of the past for many of them because of the Liberals' classification of Shortland as 'metropolitan'. Now, our much-loved GP after-hours service is being severely cut.

GP access after hours is just that: it provides after-hours appointments to people requiring medical attention but not emergency treatment. Of the 70,000 interactions each year, only 45,000 require an appointment, because of the excellent triage service offered through registered nurses. This is fundamentally important in taking pressure off our region's already overworked EDs. Because of funding cuts from the Liberals, GP access will close at the Calvary Mater at Waratah on Christmas Eve, and the service at Belmont Hospital is being halved on weekends. This means 15,000 clinic appointments will be lost. This will have a real-world, tangible impact on the people of Shortland. If they are sick on a weekend, instead of having a consultation with a GP they will have to go to the emergency department. Instead of having to wait a couple of hours to see a doctor, they'll have to wait five or six hours.

The Hunter Labor MPs are committed to fighting this. We're calling on the Morrison Liberal government to reverse these draconian cuts that will have a dramatic impact on the health of Hunter families.