Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Green for that excellent question about Medicare urgent-care clinics and how they are being rolled out across the country. I will update the chamber to let them know that there are 37 Medicare urgent-care clinics now open, including the Gold Coast Medicare urgent-care clinic, which opened yesterday. This is part of our commitment to roll out 58 urgent-care clinics right around Australia. The aim of these clinics is to make it easier for people to get the healthcare treatment they need from highly qualified health staff in a convenient and accessible way through these urgent-care clinics. They are designed to take pressure off the emergency departments, which all of us know are under extreme pressure at the moment, particularly with spring illnesses and things like that, and also to ensure that health care across Australia remains convenient and accessible through extended hours—seven-days-a-week, fully bulk billed or free-of-charge consultations. In just the months since these clinics have been opening around the country, there have been more than 60,000 presentations to Medicare urgent-care clinics. That's 60,000 presentations that either wouldn't have been seen or would have had long waits in the emergency department.

One of those patients—and I'm sure Senator Ruston will be pleased with this, because it's about a patient who attended a Medicare urgent-care clinic in Elizabeth, South Australia—arrived at the urgent-care clinic at 5.30 pm. He was triaged by a nurse within three minutes and seen by a doctor within 11 minutes. He left the urgent-care clinic at 6.02, just half an hour after he presented with what would have been a category 5 presentation and would have expected a long wait for treatment in an emergency department. (Time expired)