Newcastle residents will have a new alternative to waiting after hours at John Hunter Hospital after the federal government pledged to open a seven-day-a-week "urgent care" clinic in the city.
Minister for Health Mark Butler will be in Newcastle on Wednesday to announce the bulk-billing clinic will be established in either Newcastle or Lake Macquarie local government area to take the heat off the John Hunter emergency department.
The announcement is part of a national roll-out of the clinics, which provide treatment for semi-urgent and non-urgent medical conditions such as sprained ankles, migraines, rashes and ear ache.
An estimated 40 per cent of visits to the John Hunter emergency department are for symptoms in the least serious category-four and category-five triage levels.
The government will call for expressions of interest from GP practices to host the Newcastle clinic, which will be run by the Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network.
The Newcastle Herald understands the clinic could be operating by the end of the year but a location has not been locked in.
The government announced in the 2024-25 budget that it would spend $227 million expanding the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic program to 29 new locations.
A clinic opened in Cessnock in October as part of the first tranche of the program, seeing patients from 8am to 6pm.
The Newcastle clinic will be open every day with extended hours and will be entirely bulk-billed for walk-in care of urgent but not life-threatening issues.
A similar GP clinic at Lake Haven, on the Central Coast, opens from 8am to 7pm, but staff often stop admitting patients in the afternoon to ensure those waiting can see the doctor.
Dr Sachin Choudhary, who runs the Lake Haven clinic, told the Newcastle Herald in February that it had "taken a lot of patients who couldn't find GPs but needed to be seen on the day".
The government estimates that one in three of the 71,600 visits to urgent care clinics in NSW to date have been by people under 15 years of age and more than one in three have been on the weekend.
More than 60 per cent of presentations to the Cessnock clinic have been for acute illnesses such as upper respiratory tract infections and more than one in three for an acute injury such as a laceration.
The Albanese government has also restored $28.7 million in funding to the Hunter's GP Access After Hours program managed by Hunter Primary Care.
Mr Butler said the new clinic would make a significant difference in Lake Macquarie and Newcastle by providing "high-quality, accessible care outside of normal GP hours without having to reach for your wallet".
Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon said accessing free health care was a "big issue in Newcastle" due to low bulk-billing rates.
"This new urgent care clinic will help ensure that Novocastrians can access more bulk-billing health care services where the only card you need is your Medicare card," she said.
Bulk-billing rates have been rising across Australia since the government increased payments to doctors by between 34 and 50 per cent in November, but Hunter health district patients still pay for GP visits more often than the state and national average.
The bulk-billing rate was 82 per cent in NSW in March but only 72 per cent in the Hunter, Central Coast and New England.
The Herald reported last month that the average out-of-pocket cost for Hunter patients to see a GP had risen to $48, the highest on record for the district and a 15 per cent rise in a year.
