Radio interview with Minister Butler on Triple M Breakfast – 5 December 2024

TUBES, HOST: Right now, though, we are joined by Mark Butler, the Federal Health Minister, who is in Tasmania at the moment. Good morning to you, Minister.
 
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE, MARK BUTLER: Good morning, Tubes. I'm actually in Canberra about to get on a plane down to Tassie.
 
TUBES: Oh, we thought you were here, Minister. But back in May we spoke with you about aged care and you were announcing the Urgent Care Clinic in Bridgewater. Today, you're coming back to open that Bridgewater clinic at Jordan River Health. How does it feel to have this open?
 
BUTLER: I'm really excited. I think I said to you and your listeners, we were hoping to get it up by the end of this year, and we've been able to achieve that. I'm really glad that Jordan River Health has stuck their hand up and indicated a willingness to take their general practice to a new level and offer this terrific urgent care service to people just out north of Hobart. It will be the fifth Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Tassie, about the 84th across the country, and this week we expect the one millionth patient to go through our Urgent Care Clinics, every single one of whom is fully bulk billed – so it's completely free of charge.
 
KAZ, HOST: So, Minister, who is this care clinic for? Who should present there?
 
BUTLER: It's as the name suggests: you need urgent care. It's not there for your usual run-of-the-mill general practice stuff, like a chronic disease check or a routine script. One in three of these patients across the country have been kids under the age of 15: so your kid falls off the skateboard, your kid gets injured at Saturday afternoon sport. Your general practice is probably not open then, let alone available to take an urgent appointment. These kids and their mums and dads, up until now, have really been spending hours and hours in hospital emergency departments. Think about that sort of urgent care: things that need to be seen very, very quickly but don't necessarily need to go to a fully-equipped hospital emergency department. And that's really what they've been catering for.
 
TUBES: Minister, this is definitely welcome news for Tasmanians and our health service. We know that the Royal Hobart Hospital and our other hospitals here in Tasmania have been struggling. Are there plans for more of these Urgent Care Clinics in Tasmania?
 
BUTLER: By the end of this year we'll have 87 up and running across the country. That's what the Budget was for – last year's Budget and this year's Budget. Obviously, I'm the Health Minister and I'd like to do more to strengthen Medicare for Australians. We know the health system is still under real pressure. It's still tough for people to find a bulk billed doctor. But what we have been doing is making a difference. Bulk billing is up in Tasmania more than any other state. We've seen a big bounce in bulk billing there after our record investment in bulk billing last year, and these Urgent Care Clinics are delivering a terrific service. But of course, there's more to do and as the country's Health Minister, I'm keen for us to do more. But at the moment this is the funding we've got.
 
KAZ: So the Urgent Care Clinics are 100 per cent free and bulk billed. So the only thing you need to take with you is your Medicare card is that right?
 
BUTLER: That's right. They're open seven days a week, 365 a year. I heard stories last year of a kid falling off their new toy - it was a skateboard or something – on Christmas Day. And instead of the family spending the entire Christmas Day in the local hospital ED, they were basically seen and gone in an hour at a local Urgent Care Clinic. They're open 365 days a year. A lot of the business they do is on the weekend and in the evenings and, importantly as I said, they're fully bulk billed.
 
TUBES: That is good news for Tasmanians. We'd like to open this show for all of Tasmania. Minister. And we had Rodney from Cygnet give us a call. He's told us about, he has to spend $15,000 for new teeth and he's had to access his super. He wanted to ask you, Minister, what are the federal government doing to help Tasmanians access affordable dental care?
 
BUTLER:  Dental has never been covered by Medicare. Even in the first version of Medicare, which was Medibank from Gough Whitlam in the 70s, and then Medicare, which had to be reinstalled by Hawke 40 years ago, dental was never covered. Dental has essentially been either through private health or private funded operations, or through the state dental programs that we help fund from a Commonwealth level. And I know a lot of people would like dental to be covered by Medicare. As a Labor Party that really invented Medicare, we'd like to see that happen at some point in the future as well. But I have to be honest, my focus right now is on strengthening Medicare as we know it, particularly general practice and some of those other core elements of a program that's under enormous pressure, after a decade of cuts. I can't promise that, in the short term, there's going to be a radical change that brings dental into Medicare. But I get that in the medium to long term, that's a real ambition a lot of Australians have.
 
TUBES: That is good news and some nice honesty from a parliamentarian from Canberra minister Mark Butler. We know you're heading down to Tasmania to open that Urgent Care Clinic in Tasmania. That is going to relieve a lot of stress for our hospitals here in Tasmania. Do you have some plans to enjoy Tasmania for a little bit Mark Butler, or are you going to get in and get out?
 
BUTLER: No, I'm going to be down for a bit, we've got our regular meeting of all of the country's health ministers that Jacquie Petrusma, as the relatively new Tasmanian Health Minister, is hosting through tonight and over the course of tomorrow as well. So usually that means that me, as the Commonwealth Minister, is up against a collection of eight state and territory health ministers having a discussion about what we can do together for hospitals.
 
TUBES: Well great news Mark Butler. Travel safe and have a merry Christmas. Thanks for your time on Triple M.
 
BUTLER: My great pleasure. See you guys.