Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How are Medicare urgent care clinics making it easier for Australians to see a doctor, and are there any threats to the continued success of these clinics?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his question. He knows that a big part of our plan to strengthen Medicare was to roll out a network of Medicare urgent care clinics. They are open seven days a week, with extended hours and, very importantly, fully bulk billed. We promised to open 50 clinics last year and we opened 58. We promised to open 29 more clinics this year, and all 29 will be open by the end of next month. Already 900,000 Australians have gone through these clinics since last June. One in three of them are kids under the age of 15. One in three are visiting during the weekend, and every single one of them are fully bulk billed.

Last week I was delighted to visit the Ipswich Medicare Urgent Care Clinic with the member for Blair. It was open pretty early, and already it has seen 12½ thousand people from the member for Blair's electorate, taking real pressure off the emergency department of the local hospital there. We're told that semi-urgent and non-urgent presentations to that ED are down by 25 per cent. But it's not just relief for the local hospital; those patients are getting top-quality care in a timely fashion, completely free of charge. I have literally page after page of positive Google reviews for the Ipswich Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. I only have time to name a couple of them, and maybe I'll table the rest of them. Esther said:

Went in on a Saturday night and saw someone within 10 mins, out the door in 20. Happy and friendly staff. … This is a great substitute to the ER or waiting days to see a GP.

Kerry said:

Went in for a suspected broken foot. I was seen by triage within 15 mins … and had my results back all within an hour … Great service to take the pressure of the ED.

I could go on if standing orders allowed me to. I could go on.

We promised the Australian people we would strengthen Medicare—we would make it stronger. We're delivering more doctors, we're delivering more bulk billing and we're opening more Medicare urgent care clinics. While this is making a real difference, including for the people in the member for Blair's electorate, we know there is more to do. But we also know that those opposite in the Liberal Party pose a direct threat to that progress—a very direct threat. Just this morning, yet again, the shadow Treasurer was on the radio saying that our investments to strengthen Medicare and deliver cheaper medicines would be on the chopping block under a Dutton government. Bulk billing would go back into freefall under those opposite. Medicines will become dearer, not cheaper, and the Medicare urgent care clinics will close. That's what you'll get from the Liberal Party.