Renee Coffey (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In Griffith, Medicare matters most for the times that you can't plan for—a sudden fever after dinner, a pain that worsens on the drive home, a kid who hurts themselves on a Saturday afternoon sporting game. That's why our Medicare Urgent Care Clinics matter so much in our community. We're really lucky in Griffith. We have had the South Brisbane Medicare Urgent Care Clinic now for quite a while on Cornwall Street, and we've recently opened the new Carina-Carindale Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, where people can walk in, be seen quickly and most importantly be bulk-billed.

In the coming weeks the new Coorparoo Medicare Urgent Care Clinic will be open, adding more capacity and making it even easier for locals to get urgent care close to home, especially after hours, moving our area closer to the national target of four out of five Australians living within 20 minutes of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.

Just last week I received an email from a constituent, Peter, whose partner, Claire, developed worrying symptoms over the course of a day. By that evening, her symptoms became quite severe. They tried to find a GP appointment for that night but could not. So they went to our South Brisbane Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, arriving at about 8:30 pm. Peter told me, 'I'm so glad we did.' He described staff who kept checking in, and who were kind, attentive and focused on helping people. He said the triage nurse provided immediate comfort and symptom relief. And he spoke warmly about the doctor they saw, describing him as thorough, curious and caring, and already organising the right tests and thinking ahead about what follow up might be needed.

I also heard from another constituent, Ben, who summed up his experience with a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic by simply saying, 'I've just left there and they were absolutely incredible. Thank you so much for making it happen.' That feedback reflects what we are hearing across our community. These clinics are working because they are built around how people actually live, and we can see it in the results reported by the Brisbane South PHN. This year, they have already delivered 39,597 episodes of urgent care, up from just over 19,000 last year, and 100 per cent of discharge summaries are shared with a person's usual GP, up from 74 per cent. There is 94 per cent patient satisfaction, up from 83 per cent.

When we invest in Medicare and, in particular, when we invest in these Medicare urgent care clinics, we invest in people—their health, their time, their dignity and their peace of mind. In Griffith, we are seeing the benefits one patient, one family and one community at a time.

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