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

I thank Senator Stewart for the question and for the work that she does in the state of Victoria, advocating for improved access to affordable health care for her constituents. There are now 48 Medicare urgent care clinics open and operating, with the Alice Springs Medicare urgent care clinic, which opened this week, and the Rockhampton urgent care clinic, which opened today. Forty-eight clinics are up and running, with 10 more to be opened by the end of this month. In the election campaign we promised 50 Medicare urgent care clinics, but we will deliver 58 by the end of this year. They're operating seven days a week for extended hours and are open to walk-in patients who need urgent care for non-threatening emergencies for themselves or for their children.

Some of the results that we're seeing are excellent. There have been 75,000 presentations to Medicare urgent care clinics, just in the last few months. Importantly, a third of these patients have been under 15 years of age, so we know they are working for families with children. Nearly a third of the visits have taken place on weekends, which is, again, something the model sought to address: the fact that often you are unable to access primary health care on the weekend, and that would result in long waits at hospital emergency departments. On weekdays, more than one in five visits take place after hours.

We are getting a lot of feedback, particularly from parents with children who have experienced fractures, about how great the service is and that they're not required to wait at emergency departments.

This is an important initiative. It's working well. We're doing it in conjunction with states and territories to make sure that the primary healthcare system is supporting the tertiary healthcare system. And, of course, this builds on the work that was achieved today at National Cabinet in relation to partnerships on health and hospital services.