Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today about the effects that the GP co-payment will have on small Victorian regional hospitals, which do not have the funding for emergency care departments; they have urgency care departments. Urgency care departments are staffed by doctors who bulk-bill patients who present. They do not receive state funding so they are directly in the firing line when it comes to this government's GP tax. This means that every time a patient presents, the urgency care departments will have to ask for the $7. If you turn up with your son or daughter who may have a major gash or if you turn up with your son or daughter who has fallen out of a tree, before the doctor can treat them, you have to hand over $7.

This government is directly impacting urgency care departments by proposing this GP tax. What is it that it has against the bush and against small towns? Every single small urgency care department in regional Victoria—and I have three in my electorate—are now at risk. Doctors in Kyneton, doctors in Castlemaine and doctors in Heathcote are saying they do not think that, under this government's proposal, it is workable to keep these urgency care departments going. It is time this government started to listen to the doctors in the bush and stopped listening to the bean counters. It is time this government started to listen to people who are directly involved in these services.