MAKING it easier and cheaper to see a GP to unclog emergency departments is the key driver of Labor's health policies in the Hunter, Mark Butler says.
The Shadow Minister for Health and Ageing was in Toronto alongside the region's Labor leaders and candidate Dan Repacholi on Wednesday to reiterate the party's commitment to restore full funding to the Hunter's GP Access After Hours service, and establish an "urgent care" facility in Cessnock.
Mr Butler restated that the party would re-classify the Hunter Region as a "distribution priority area" to make it easier for local practices to attract and retain GPs. He said the doctor shortages - in addition to cuts to the GP Access After Hours service - was being felt in our EDs.
"We know that hospital emergency departments really act as the lightning rod for every other failing or gap we have in our healthcare system," he said. "Our EDs, which are built for those once-in-a-lifetime emergencies like heart attacks and strokes and major car accidents, also end up picking up those less urgent care cases, because people can't find a GP where they need it or when they need it."
A bulk-billed urgent care facility in Cessnock, one of 50 nationally, would give people with minor injuries another option.
"These facilities will be required to be open seven days a week - at the very least from 8am until 10pm," he said.
Mr Butler said the model was already working well in other countries, such as New Zealand.
"They have the lowest presentation rates to emergency departments per head of population in the OECD, or in the developed world - substantially lower than the ED presentation rates in Australia," he said. "All of the practices that are keen to do this have made it clear they need some additional block funding to make it work because the existing Medicare funding arrangements - where you just get a standard consult of $38 paid by Medicare, just doesn't make it financially viable."
Mr Repacholi said they had knocked on "thousands" of doors and "everyone" was facing the same issues of seeing a doctor. The region's Labor MPs are collecting signatures for a petition to save GP Access After Hours.
