‘Bulk billing is almost non-existent’: Tasmanian councils turn to ratepayers to prop up flailing GP clinics

Doctors working in rural Tasmania say it is unsustainable for most GP clinics to rely entirely on bulk billing and councils have had to step in with funding. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

People in one of the lowest income areas of Tasmania are paying extra in their council rates to prop up health services and subsidise local GP bulk-billing clinics.

Dr John Saul, the president of the AMA in Tasmania, says Glamorgan-Spring Bay council on the state’s east coast is one of several rural areas charging ratepayers for GP services so the most vulnerable patients can receive healthcare.