JULIE STURGESS, CEO, COUNTRY TO COAST QLD: Welcome everyone. It's a very exciting day for us here on the Sunshine Coast for the opening of the Buderim Urgent Care Clinic. Lovely to have everyone here today. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Traditional Custodians of the land that we're on today, and that's the land of the Kabi Kabi people - pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. And certainly very exciting to have key people here to help us celebrate the opening today, so, Assistant Minister Emma McBride, Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention and also Rural and Regional Health - really exciting - and also, Senator Corinne Mulholland. So, lovely to have key people committed to this region celebrating with us today.
I'm going to hand over to Assistant Minister McBride.
ASSISTANT MINISTER EMMA MCBRIDE: Thank you very much, Julie. It's wonderful to be back here on the Sunshine Coast. And I want to recognise Julie, the CEO of the PHN, for the work that they do, including commissioning this new Medicare urgent Care Clinic. To my colleague and friend, Senator Corinne Mulholland, thank you for your advocacy, for being a powerful advocate for improved access to healthcare, particularly here on the Sunshine Coast.
This Medicare Urgent Care Clinic opened yesterday, and already, 40 people have walked in to access free care just with their Medicare card - fully bulk billed and without needing an appointment. This is one of 16 that have been opened in Queensland already. Eight more to come, including one in the New Year in Caloundra, a second Medicare Urgent Care Clinic on the Sunshine Coast. This is part of a network which will expand to 137 across the country, and already 2.2 million Australians have visited an Urgent Care Clinic for free.
We know that about one in four visits are young people under 15, proving that Medicare Urgent Care is a trusted alternative to the emergency department for families. And one in four visits is also outside of normal GP clinic hours, the evenings or on the weekends. This clinic is open from 8am until 5pm Monday, seven days a week. And in February next year, the hours will be expanded from 8am until 10pm, meaning that more local people will be able to access urgent care close to home when they need it. And importantly, as part of the urgent care model, pathology and medical imaging are close by so someone can get the wraparound support and care that they need, again, for free.
And I want to thank Dr Anthony and his practice for becoming part of the Medicare urgent care model. We know that for doctors that urgent care really allows them to work to the top of their skills and training to be able to see someone, diagnose someone and treat them all at the same place and very quickly. We also know that urgent care clinics are reducing the pressure on local hospital emergency departments.
At the local Sunshine University Hospital, about 27 per cent of presentations are classified or categorised as semi-urgent or non-urgent. And with the introduction of Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, it means that those patients will be able to be seen and treated here, meaning that people with more life-threatening or serious conditions will be able to be seen more quickly at the local hospital emergency department.
I might now hand over to Corinne to talk about what this will mean for local people, and then after that we'll be happy to take your questions.
CORINNE MULHOLLAND, SENATOR: Thank you, Minister. It is great to be here on the Sunshine Coast, and it is certainly putting the Sunshine Coast- the sunshine into the Sunshine Coast name. Thank you so much to Julie for her warm welcome and the whole PHN team; to Jason and the team here at Ochre Health; and of course, to Anthony for his fantastic tour this morning. He’s the Medical Coordinator here at the new Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.
As a young mum myself, I know just how important it is to be able to access a bulk billed doctor. We know at the moment in the community people are asking out and calling out for Medicare-accessible bulk billed doctors, and that's exactly what the Albanese Government has delivered.
At the last election six, seven months ago, we promised two Urgent Care Clinics for the Sunshine Coast, and I'm so proud that today we are opening this, which is the first of two facilities that we'll be delivering here on the Sunshine Coast. As the Minister said, this is day two of operations and already we've seen upwards of 40 patients come through the doors.
We know that this means important things for families here locally who need access to good quality services, and they don't have to worry about how they're going to afford it. For some people, it could be up to $100 to get in to see a doctor. They don't have to worry about that at a facility like this. They can come through, they can walk in, they can make an appointment, they just need their Medicare card, and they can access world-class care.
So, I'm so excited to be here today to open this official- for our official opening of this amazing facility.
MCBRIDE: Thank you very much, Corinne.
JOURNALIST: Can you just talk us through exactly what sort of medical conditions the Urgent Care Clinics are treating people for?
MCBRIDE: Yes. What we've seen across the country is people coming in for urgent but not life-threatening conditions. So it might be a sprain, it might be a major cut, it might be a spike in temperature or a virus. We're seeing people who do need to be seen quickly where their circumstances are urgent, but not life-threatening. And as I mentioned, that's really taking the pressure off hospitals and emergency departments across the country, and we expect to see that here as well.
JOURNALIST: You're saying there's another eight to open across Queensland?
MCBRIDE: So this is the 16th one open in Queensland. There'll be eight more as part of this round of Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. One opening in the new year in Caloundra, so a second one here on the Sunshine Coast.
JOURNALIST: Can you just tell a few others across the state?
MCBRIDE: Yes. There's one in Southport, one in Rockhampton. So what we're intending to do is have a Medicare Urgent Care Clinics within half an hour drive for most Australians. And as I mentioned, we've seen already 2.2 million Australians who've accessed an urgent care clinic. As Corinne mentioned, as a new parent herself, about one in four presentations are children under 15, so the Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are becoming a very trusted alternative to the emergency department, particularly for parents with children.
JOURNALIST: I have a question just from one of our other markets. Your colleague, Anika Wells, is facing a lot of criticism at the moment. What do you have to say about this?
MCBRIDE: Minister Wells has answered the questions that have been put to her. As Minister Wells has said, all of the travel claims that she has made are within the guidelines. And I know Minister Wells, as a young parent and particularly as the Minister for Sport, which takes her right across the country, particularly on evenings and weekends, is dedicated to the work that she does.
JOURNALIST: Thank you.