Albanese promised the clinics would offer free healthcare to millions and take pressure off emergency departments. But ED doctors I speak to say it is the small but increasing number of very sick patients – not the large number of less-urgent cases – that take up most of their time. An evaluation of existing clinics, quietly released on the eve of the election, found it was too early to say whether they were improving waiting times or the number of non-urgent patients turning up to nearby hospitals.
The clinics have faced teething problems, including staff shortages and access to out-of-hours medical scans, and doctor groups have argued they would lead to fragmented care, strain the existing workforce and were not cost-effective.
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But urgent care clinics aren’t designed to replace regular visits to GPs. They’re meant to help people in situations like mine, when the only alternative on a Sunday morning was a hospital. By this measure, urgent care clinics are saving taxpayers; equivalent non-urgent presentations to EDs are estimated to cost about $616 per visit.
We may have to wait years for all 137 clinics to open, and for patients to learn they exist, before we know if that’s bang for buck. Labor’s flagship $8.5 billion bulk-billing changes, which began this month, could also convince families visiting urgent care clinics for free healthcare to go back to their GP.
Early evidence shows there is demand for something between a GP clinic and a hospital. I, for one, was happy to avoid five hours in an emergency department. And none of us should have to spend hundreds of dollars just to get a few stitches.
Angus Thomson is a health reporter.
