Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call on the Turnbull government to urgently commit to a full Medicare MRI licence at the Tweed Hospital. Recently, the government rejected an application by Queensland Diagnostic Imaging for the full MRI licence for the Tweed Hospital. This is simply unfair and unjust. The fact is that the Minister for Health could make a decision today and grant the licence, and my community is calling for this. I have previously written to the health minister requesting that the government fully commit to this so that locals can get access to this important health service. Our community on the New South Wales North Coast fully supports this campaign, because we know how important the full Medicare MRI licence is and how much it is vitally needed at the Tweed Hospital. This service would greatly assist locals living in both the Tweed and Byron shires.

Currently the MRI at the Tweed Hospital only has a partial licence. Whilst it offers a full range of services to patients, only specified items are bulk-billed, as they do not have the full Medicare licence. The reality for patients is they either have to pay to get the MRI or alternatively have to travel significant distances to access a rebateable MRI. This situation means that locals are significantly disadvantaged. This is fundamentally unfair, because we know that MRIs can save lives. They are important tools in diagnosis and ongoing treatment. If a patient needs an MRI at Tweed Hospital and it is not on the rebateable list, either they need to pay the gap, which can often be hundreds of dollars, or they have go to Robina or Lismore, both of which have waiting lists weeks long, and it can be difficult for locals to get there due to the lack of public transport.

I have also been advised that this situation puts my community members in an unsafe and often poor quality health situation, where patients who cannot afford an MRI scan are sometimes having to take up the option of undertaking radiation exposure on CT scans, or sometimes they just do not get the MRI. This is simply wrong. It is unfair that the community does not have affordable and convenient access to MRIs. This is severely affecting their health outcomes.

The Tweed-Byron area has one of the fastest growing populations in the country, and we also have a large proportion of seniors, who often have complex healthcare needs. All of this makes access to an affordable MRI even more vitally important. Quite frankly, it is wrong for the Tweed Hospital to miss out, considering the size and growth of our region's population, particularly our elderly population. Due to the massive community concern about this issue, I will be launching a petition calling on the government to grant the full MRI licence. We are not asking for anything extraordinary or extravagant; we just want our fair share—basic medical services for our people in our region.

I will continue to fight on behalf of my community for a full Medicare MRI licence at the Tweed Hospital so that locals can rightfully access the effective health services that they deserve. My community is 100 per cent behind this campaign. They desperately need to have access to this important health service, and quite frankly it is unfair that the government has not granted it so far.