Minister Butler and Assistant Minister McBride, press conference – 4 March 2025

DR GORDON REID, MEMBER FOR ROBERTSON: Good morning everybody. I want to welcome you all here to Providence Medical Centre. This is a fantastic GP clinic right here on the peninsula in the southern end of the Central Coast. Can I just say firstly, I want to welcome Mark Butler, the Minister for Health, and I also want to welcome Assistant Minister Emma McBride, to Providence Medical here. We know that the Albanese Labor Government is committed to health care, not just here on the Central Coast, but right across our country, and it's not only limited to general practice.

We've seen recently an $8.5 billion announcement in improving bulk billing services and access to GPs. And also to an expansion of our urgent care network. If you're too sick for the GP, not sick enough for the emergency department, before this government's election, you didn't have anywhere to go. Now you have somewhere to go. Bulk billed clinics, walk-in for adults and children with extended operating hours. And also, to our affordable medicines, making sure that people can get the medicines that they need, when they need them, to stop those chronic medical conditions exacerbating and from becoming acute medical conditions and ending up in the emergency department. With that, I'll hand over to the Minister for Health, Mark Butler.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Thanks, Gordon and Emma, and to the doctors and staff and nurses here. Thanks for having us here. It's a terrific Urgent Care Clinic that's delivered amazing urgent care to almost 14,000 people from the southern part of the Central Coast, people who overwhelmingly would otherwise have had to go to a hospital emergency department to receive urgent care for something that was urgent but not life-threatening. Up in the northern part of the Central Coast, at the Lake Haven Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, about the same number of people in that part of the Coast have been cared for as well. Open 7 days a week, extended hours and importantly, fully bulk billed, this network of 87 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics have already seen about 1.2 million Australian patients.

But as part of our agenda to strengthen Medicare, which particularly involves more doctors, more bulk billing and more urgent care clinics, we know there is more to do. And that's why on the weekend, I was delighted to announce with the Prime Minister that, if elected at the coming election, we would add another 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics to the network, which will bring to total 137 across the country. And one of those 50 will be delivered in the centre of the Central Coast. Does that make sense? The centre of the Central Coast. Because at the moment you have about a 50- or 60-minute drive between the 2 Clinics at the north and the southern part of the Coast.

As we've decided the locations of the additional 50, we've looked particularly at hospital presentation data, particularly the semi-urgent, non-urgent categories presenting at EDs. We've looked at bulk billing data, but I've also tried to ensure, as far as possible, that as many Australians live within a reasonable driving distance of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. Placing an additional clinic in the central part of the Central Coast will ensure that people on the Coast all live within a 15- to 20-minute drive of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, open 7 days a week, extended hours and providing fully bulk billed, high-quality urgent care for those urgent but non-life threatening emergencies.

I'm really grateful for the advocacy that Gordon and Emma have given to our strengthening Medicare agenda generally. It's terrific to have an emergency physician and a hospital pharmacist in our Caucus, in a really literate, expert way advocating for good health policy from the Commonwealth Government. As local members as well, they’ve made the case for a range of different initiatives to improve access to high quality healthcare on the Central Coast.

In addition, I'm also delighted to announce today that the Commonwealth Government will be providing the New South Wales Government with $10 million to improve access to maternity services here on the Central Coast. Gordon and Emma and I have had a number of discussions about the impact that the withdrawal of private maternity services at Gosford Private have had on this community. It essentially means there is no private maternity service on the Central Coast. You have to go to Newcastle in the north or Sydney in the south to access a private bed.

This is a very significant market failure. There are thousands and thousands of families who pay gold product insurance cover in the expectation that they would receive in return, a good private maternity service when the moment comes to give birth to their beautiful baby boy or baby girl. The market frankly has let them down. Ultimately, in the longer term, this is a responsibility of private health insurers and private hospitals to fix. In the meantime, that slack, that market failure, is going to have to be filled by government. Gordon and Emma and I have had a number of discussions about the way in which the Commonwealth can assist in that venture. We have also come to an agreement with the New South Wales Government to ensure that at Gosford and at Wyong Hospital as well, New South Wales Health is able to expand their birthing unit capacity, to expand their perinatal care capacity, both before birth and after birth, and also improve their attraction or expand their attraction and retention of the highly trained, professional workforce we need to deliver high quality maternity services on the Coast.
I'm delighted that we've been able to come to an agreement with New South Wales Health to provide an additional $10 million. That's additional to the hospital funding agreement the Prime Minister and I announced several weeks ago, which will provide New South Wales with an 11 per cent increase in their public hospital funding in the next financial year. Additionally to that, we're providing $10 million to New South Wales Health to help them essentially fill the capability gap that's been left by the withdrawal of private maternity services at Gosford Private. Do you want to say anything about that before I take questions?

DR REID: I just want to say on maternity services here on the Central Coast, this has been a big issue that my community and Emma’s community have been talking about now for quite some time. We held a Women's Health Forum with Assistant Minister Ged Kearney and also a local GP, Dr Colette Hourigan, where we were listening to the concerns of families right across the Central Coast, but also to expectant mothers and their loved ones about what the loss of the private maternity service meant, but also too why we need to bolster the public system to give women choice in healthcare. That includes not just the birthing suite component and that sort of perinatal maternity service – that before, during and after birth component – but also too workforce issues, so our specialists, our nurses, our midwives, and then also to the running and the operations of our clinics. Think of things like colposcopy clinics, obstetric clinics and the like.

This $10 million, I'm a little bit lost for words, because it will go a long way to improving, to bolstering and supporting our maternity services here on the Central Coast, and will also give women the choice that they, quite frankly, deserve when it comes to healthcare.
 
EMMA MCBRIDE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND SUICIDE PREVENTION: This is a really important day for healthcare on the Central Coast, and I want to recognise my colleague, Dr Gordon Reid, a practicing emergency doctor, for his advocacy and his work in the community to raise the profile and prominence of issues in our community to the national discourse. I want to thank my colleague, Minister Mark Butler, for the interest that you've shown in our community and communities like ours right around the country, in the outer suburbs, in the regions, to make sure that we get the healthcare that people need and that they deserve.

As a pharmacist who worked at Wyong Hospital for nearly 10 years, I've seen our community grow. I've seen our health services stretch, and I've also seen the tireless, dedicated health workers that are working every day to provide that care. And I know the reassurance it gives them, Minister Butler, to see this significant investment from the Commonwealth, an additional $10 million in our maternity services for new and expectant parents. That reassurance that it will give them to know that the Commonwealth is investing in services locally to increase capacity and capability, as Dr Reid has spoken about.

On the Urgent Care Clinics, as Dr Reid has said, before Labor came to government, there wasn’t Urgent Care Clinics. We promised to introduce 50. There are now 87. Since ours opened on the Central Coast, we've seen now 30,000 local people from the Central Coast be able to get urgent care. In my community, the Lake Haven Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, we've seen 16,000 people come through. A third of them are parents with children under 15, demonstrating that urgent care is a trusted model of care for parents and families. And almost one in 4 outside of normal hours, giving parents trust and confidence to know that the services are available when they need them. I've spoken to parents who've had babies with a spiked temperature. I've spoken to a husband who had a chest infection. I've seen people that have had injuries and accidents. They know that they can now go to an Urgent Care Clinic in the north of the Central Coast in Lake Haven and the south of the Central Coast in Umina. And as Minister Butler has now coined as a new phrase, in the centre of the Central Coast there will be, if an Albanese government is re-elected, access to more people from the Central Coast when they need it, 15 to 20 minutes from home.

I also just want to touch briefly on mental health services, with my responsibility and the introduction of Medicare Mental Health. I want to thank Minister Butler for his leadership, the first Federal Minister for Mental Health, who really sees the need in communities and to be able to open both Medicare Mental Health Centres in Gosford, just a few weeks ago with Dr Reid, and in Tuggerah, in my community on the Central Coast. As a mental health worker myself, there was always need in the community. I saw it when I worked in the acute inpatient units, and to know now that people can get support earlier. There's always times when all of us need some additional support, and if that support can be provided earlier, in the community, then people won't end up in crisis and needing that inpatient care where I worked. It's no surprise that demand has been high for the services since they've been introduced. But what's really reassuring for me is to know that that support is now available in the community. Peer workers who've had their own lived experience, social workers, psychologists, available free and to people who need it in communities. I might hand back now to Minister Butler to take any questions.

JOURNALIST: Minister Butler, the $10 million, when will Central Coast Local Health District receive that funding, and over how long? Is it a lump sum? Will it be over several years.

BUTLER: We’ll provide it on a very flexible basis. We have obviously a very reliable, trusting relationship with New South Wales Health, as we have with other state governments. We know that they're the ones on the ground best positioned to decide how to distribute those funds. We're obviously clear that we want to see increased capacity at Gosford and Wyong in birthing units, but also to see a broader range of services in the perinatal sense, available to mums and families and newborn bubs as well. And, there needs to be a workforce component to this. So, we're not going to be prescriptive about the way in which New South Wales Health distributes this fund and ends up spending it. It's going to be provided on a very flexible basis, available to them as soon as possible.

JOURNALIST: Wyong Hospital doesn't have any capacity for birthing, at the moment. Would you expect any of the money would go towards birthing at Wyong Hospital?

BUTLER: Again, that's really a matter for New South Wales Health. We're not going to be prescriptive about that. They operate the hospital system here in New South Wales, they employ the staff, they're best positioned to decide how to distribute those funds.

JOURNALIST: In terms of the Urgent Care Clinics, obviously the demand is really, really high, and that means there's some GP shortages we're grappling with here on the Coast. How are you going to ensure that these now three clinics will be staffed properly?

BUTLER: We just had a terrific discussion with the operators of this Urgent Care Clinic about some of the challenges they have – not because of the attractiveness of this model; it's a really attractive place to work as a doctor or a nurse; I get that feedback all over the country – but some of the system barriers and hurdles that communities like this have in attracting GPs. Gordon and Emma talk to me about this a lot. I was just up in the upper Hunter earlier today, where similar challenges were relayed to me. We're working through some of that. We had a review of our workforce distribution levers, which frankly maybe haven't serviced communities like this sufficiently well, and that's something I've talked to Gordon and Emma about. We heard some great ideas in the discussion we just had with the operators of this clinic. Can I say though, in the announcement we made about 10 days ago as a government, the Prime Minister and I, we recognise the need to train more doctors. We're expanding for the first time in a long time, medical school places in our major cities. We're expanding the number of junior doctors who will be able to train as GPs to a record high. This year I'm really pleased to say that there are more junior doctors training as GPs this year than has ever been the case in Australia, after a couple of years of significant increase in interest among medical graduates and junior doctors to train as GPs. So, we do have a very significant challenge across the country. We don't have enough people coming into general practice, and certainly that provides downstream challenges in staffing areas like the emerging Urgent Care Clinic network. But we're working very hard to make sure that in addition to more Urgent Care Clinics and more bulk billing, we are delivering more doctors.

JOURNALIST: On the issue of the private maternity closure, this is a growing region with one hospital now for babies to be born from the end of the month. You've expressed that $10 million will help ensure that women have choice, but the only choice is still going to be to deliver in a public hospital. Can the federal government influence decisions made by these private operators in any way?

BUTLER: By their nature, they are private and they operate on a commercial basis, but they also do so with billions of dollars of support from taxpayers in the form of the private health insurance rebate, and more importantly, billions and billions of dollars provided by hard-working families. This is hard earned cash provided by millions of families across the country in private health insurance premiums. For families thinking of having a child, they are required to have a gold product to get access to maternity services. They're paying top dollar in the expectation that when the time comes to give birth to their beautiful baby, they will have a return on that investment from private health insurance companies through private hospitals. This is not just a problem on the Coast. We've been dealing with this over recent days in Hobart, in Darwin. It's happened in other parts of the country as well. There is clearly a systemic challenge around maternity services here. I've pulled together CEOs of private hospitals and private health insurers over the last several months, along with the AMA and with some patient groups. I’ve put a range of ideas that I want them to consider seriously about changes, particularly to maternity services and mental health, which as Emma talks about often is a big challenge in the private hospital sector. I want them to consider that as a matter of urgency. The system is just not working well enough for communities like the Central Coast. If thousands of families are paying their hard-earned cash into premiums and being left high and dry when it comes to wanting to make a claim because they're giving birth to their beautiful baby, then the system needs change.

JOURNALIST: On the issue of the additional Medicare Urgent Care Clinic that's been promised, has the location been fine tuned or will it be at the same centre?

BUTLER: We want it to be in the centre, because one of the key objectives here is, as I said earlier, to ensure that as many Australians have access to a clinic within reasonable driving distance as possible. Across the 137 that we will have up and running, if we're elected at the coming election, that will mean that four in five Australians live within a 20-minute drive of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. That's not as high a number as I would like to see it, but it's a very, very good start from where we were only less than three years ago, where we had no Medicare Urgent Care Clinics anywhere in the country. It needs to be in the centre of the Coast to ensure that there's a good spread between this clinic, the Lake Haven clinic in the north and one in the central part. We've nominated Terrigal as sort of a broad area where we'd like to see a focus, but having provided the funds, if we're elected at the next election, and Gordon and Emma are returned as part of our government, that will be a really important part of our re-election. Then the Primary Health Network here, the Hunter, New England, Central Coast Primary Health Network, would then conduct a commissioning exercise as they have for this clinic at Lake Haven. They'll put out a request to general practices in that part of the Coast to see which practices want to take their practice to the next level, like this one has here on the peninsula. And if they do that, and they win that tender, they'll be provided with substantial support from the Commonwealth to do that. We don't have a particular pinpoint location in mind, but we want to be clear that it's that central part of the Central Coast that we have a real interest in.

JOURNALIST: Just on mental health again, this might be one for you Assistant Minister McBride, the PHN did indicate that the take-up of appointments at both Tuggerah and Gosford was higher than in other locations. So that speaks to the need in our community. Is there any way of increasing capacity or how do you ensure that everyone who needs those appointments can get one?

MCBRIDE: It's so important. We know that there are so many people in our community in distress and people experiencing circumstances in their life, whether it's a loss of a loved one, whether it's relationship breakdown, where they need that additional support. For the first time now that support is available free and walk-in through Medicare. We’re now as the Labor Government putting mental health at the heart of Medicare. And this is a really significant national reform. We've committed to 61 Medicare Mental Health Centres across the country, 2 right here on the Central Coast. As Minister Butler has said, these services are commissioned through the Primary Health Network, who work directly with operators to make sure that they have the workforce that they need to meet the demands in communities. I'm confident in the Primary Health Network working with Beam Health, the operator, to be able to meet those needs. And what makes me really optimistic as a mental health worker myself is the wraparound care. Because what people often need is input from a psychologist, from a counsellor, from a peer worker, and this for the first time, will be offered in a holistic way to people and families in our communities. It is a new initiative. We're rolling them out across the country. We now have 35 open. On the Central Coast, giving our community, it's no surprise that we've seen the demand that there is there. But it makes me really reassured to know that for the first time, this is available to people close to home and free. Thank you.