Health

Werribee Medicare Urgent Care Clinic:

Labor went to the last election promising to open 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. We’ve now opened 87, including our very own right here in Werribee. 

The Werribee Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is a key part of the Albanese Government’s reforms to strengthen Medicare to deliver a better, fairer and stronger health system and to deliver cost of living relief. 

Clinics are open for extended hours and at weekends, with no appointment needed. Services are fully bulk billed, with no out of pocket costs for patients. Since it has opened, over 18,000 locals have received bulk-billed urgent medical treatment at the Werribee Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.  

Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are taking the pressure off busy hospital emergency departments. Nearly half the patients say they would have gone to the local emergency department if the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic was not there.  

Across Australia, the largest proportion of Medicare Urgent Care Clinic patients have been children. Nearly a third of visits are by children under 15. Some of their most common conditions are upper respiratory tract infections, coughs, otitis media, lacerations, rashes, viruses, fevers and fractures. 

Our 87 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics mean 70 per cent of Australians now live no more than a 20-minute drive from fully bulk billed urgent care, available seven days a week. 

Doctors are also loving the clinics with a recent poll finding over 70 per cent of GPs support the work of Medicare Urgent Care Clinics and over 80 per cent of GPs think they’re having a positive impact on hospital emergency departments. 

 

More GPs for Wyndham:

In 2019, the former Liberal Government cut the ability of local GP clinics to recruit doctors from overseas to deliver bulk-billed services. Clinics were reporting they couldn't take any new patients and wait times of 5 days, and in some cases local doctors, nurses & staff were in tears because of the pressure this has put on them. 

Since we've come to Government, Labor has reversed this cut - allowing local clinics to recruit more doctors to deliver bulk-billing services. 

 

Boosting Bulk-Billing:

The 2023 Budget delivered the largest ever increase in the bulk-billing incentive, which will help over 97,000 locals access a bulk-billing doctor. 

And a re-elected Albanese Labor Government will make the single largest investment in Medicare ever. This will deliver an additional 18 million bulk billed GP visits every year. This will mean 9 out of 10 GP visits will be bulk billed by 2030, boosting the number of fully bulk billed practices to around 4800 nationally – triple the current number. 

This election is a make-or-break moment for Medicare: it’s a choice between a stronger Medicare with more bulk billing for all Australians under Labor, or more cuts to Medicare under Peter Dutton’s Liberals. 

Labor wants all Australians to have access to a free bulk billing doctor. Whether your family needs urgent or ongoing health care, under Labor every Australian will have access to free healthcare with their Medicare card. 

 

To do this Labor will: 

• Expand the bulk billing incentive to all Australians. 

• Boost Medicare payments to general practices that bulk bill every patient. 

• Train thousands more nurses and doctors 

 

We’ve made Medicines Cheaper:

Labor built Medicare and we will always strengthen it. 

In our latest Budget, we are provided $3 billion to support pharmacies and to keep the costs of medicines down. 

We’re freezing the maximum cost of PBS prescriptions for a year. That means no one will pay more than $31.60 for a PBS script. 

And we’ve allowed 60-day dispensing – saving locals a trip to their GP and less visits to the pharmacy for their medications.  

For Australians with pensioner or concession cards, we’re freezing the price for five years. So those Australians won’t pay more than $7.70 for the medicine they need. 

These policies have meant locals have saved over $1.9 million on over 150,000 scripts.  

And we’re adding more life-changing medicines to the PBS list. 

 

Delivering Medicare Coverage to MRI Machines for Wyndham:

For too long, locals have had to travel to Sunshine or Geelong to access MRI scans covered by Medicare. I’ve been campaigning for almost a decade to get a Medicare MRI Licence for Wyndham.  

Labor is delivering 4, with the first coming online this year. Patients will benefit from reduced waiting times leading to quicker diagnosis and more timely management of their conditions.

 

Better Health Care for Local Women:

The Albanese Labor is delivering more choice, lower costs and better health care for women in Wyndham. 

Women deserve to have their health care taken seriously and these changes could save women and their families thousands of dollars across their lifetimes. 

 

Here’s the detail: 

• The first PBS listing for new oral contraceptive pills in more than 30 years, with the listing of Yaz® and Yasmin® saving 50,000 women hundreds of dollars a year, and work underway to list more contraceptive pills. 

• More choice, lower costs and better access to long-term contraceptives, with larger Medicare payments and more bulk billing for IUDs and birth control implants, saving around 300,000 women a year up to $400 in out-of-pocket costs. 

• More Medicare support for women experiencing menopause, with a new Medicare rebate for menopause health assessments, funding to train health professionals, the first-ever clinical guidelines and a national awareness campaign. 

• The first PBS listing for new menopausal hormone therapies in over 20 years, with around 150,000 women each year saving hundreds of dollars a year. 

• More endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics treating more conditions, opening 11 new clinics and ensuring all 33 clinics are staffed to provide specialist support for menopause. 

 

It’s about time women in Wyndham had more choice, lower costs and better health care.