The Albanese Government is delivering on its promise to strengthen Medicare with another Medicare Urgent Care Clinic destined for the Gold Coast, this time in Southport.
The Southport Medicare UCC will give Gold Coast locals greater access to high quality and free urgent care, much like the Gold Coast Medicare UCC in Oxenford has been delivering since last year.
Southport has been chosen, in close consultation with the Queensland Government, and will improve access to care for urgent, non-life threatening, conditions. Importantly, it will ease pressure on the Gold Coast University Hospital.
The Southport Medicare UCC will be commissioned by the Gold Coast Primary Health Network.
The clinic is one of a further 29 announced as part of the $227 million expansion in the 2024-25 Budget.
The 58 existing Urgent Care Clinics have already seen more than 400,000 presentations since the first sites opened in June 2023.
This includes more than 56,000 visits to Queensland Urgent Care Clinics in Bundaberg, Cairns South, Ipswich, Logan, Northside, Murrumba Downs, Rockhampton, South Brisbane, Toowoomba, Townsville and the Gold Coast.
Across Queensland, the largest proportion of patients have been children, with almost 1 in 3 visits from kids aged under 15 years old.
Almost half of the presentations to Medicare Urgent Care Clinics in Queensland have been outside standard business hours, which means the clinics are fulfilling an important gap in services across extended hours and over the weekend.
The investment forms part of a $169.4 million Strengthening Medicare investment in Queensland from the Australian Government. The package includes measures to support older Queenslanders, including:
- $121.7 million to provide hospital outreach services in the community, deliver crisis support to avoid unnecessary hospital admissions, and utilise transitional bed capacity outside of public hospitals.
- Up to $4.6 million to extend and expand the Acute to successful Residential Care Transition Program to support people with behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia.
- Approximately $2.5 million to help older people recover from a hospital stay with short term care through the extended Transition Care Programme, and
- Up to $4.25 million to extend the Comprehensive Palliative Care in Aged Care program, to support new and advanced ways of delivering end of life care.
Quotes attributable to Minister Butler:
"Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are already delivering for Queenslanders.
"Thousands of patients have been able to receive urgent care quickly and for free.
"A second Urgent Care Clinic for the Gold Coast, at Southport, will mean more Queenslanders can access high quality urgent care without having to wait in a hospital emergency department.
"The Albanese Government is delivering more Urgent Care Clinics, in more locations, and all Queenslanders need is their Medicare card.
"Our broader investments in strengthening Medicare will also support older Queenslanders to get better care outside of the hospital system, further reducing the pressure on local hospitals and freeing up beds for other patients."
Quotes attributable to Minister Watt, Senator for Queensland:
"Since opening in November 2023 there's been over 3,000 presentations to the Gold Coast Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Oxenford.
"Gold Coast residents are receiving cheaper, faster health care. It's closer to home, at short notice, and bulk billed under Medicare.
"Another clinic in Southport will give Gold Coast locals access to the urgent care they need and take even more pressure off the Gold Coast University Hospital ED."
Quotes attributable to Queensland Minister for Health, Shannon Fentiman:
"The Gold Coast University Hospital is home to one of the busiest Emergency Departments in the entire country.
"That's why this second Medicare Urgent Care Clinic on the Gold Coast is so important.
"Together with the Miles Government's Satellite Hospital programs, Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are providing locals with more free, high-quality healthcare options closer to home, while also taking pressure on our very busy Emergency Departments."
