Additional funding to boost staffing at Edmonton Urgent Care Clinic, Cape cancer screening

Deputy PM Richard Marles has announced that one of the country’s busiest urgent care clinics will receive a boost in the form of funding for new staff as well as funding for cancer screening in The Cape.

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles was in Cairns on Tuesday to announce additional funding to boost the capacity of the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, and more preventive health services like cancer screening and skin cancer check programs. Left to Right, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Cairns Urgent Care Clinic practice manager Anna Stuy and Labor candidate for Leichhardt Matt Smith. Photo: Dylan Nicholson

Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has promised one of the country’s busiest urgent care clinics will receive funding for new staff to help reduce wait times at the Cairns hospital.

Mr Marles joined Labor candidate for Leichhardt Matt Smith at the Cairns Urgent Care Clinic in Edmonton on Tuesday to announce the facility will receive new funding for additional staff.

He said it would help reduce waits and divert more patients with non-life threatening injuries away from the under-stress emergency department at the hospital.

“I know many families that have used the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic when otherwise they would have been stuck waiting for hours at the Cairns Hospital,” Mr Smith said.

“This is one of the most heavily used clinics in Australia and that is why we are happy to announce additional funding for more staff to be placed at this clinic so people can get in and get out and back home where they want to be.”

Practice manager Anna Stuy said the funding would be used to put on additional staff but said they weren’t sure of the detail “but (it would) most likely would be another doctor”.

“Which would help us most to decrease wait times, which range from 15 minutes to three hours,” she said.

Ms Stuy said the urgent care clinic was helping issues such as ambulance ramping at the Cairns hospital.

“Ten minutes before you arrived we had QAS divert a patient here for treatment rather than the hospital.”

Deputy PM Richard Marles with Labor candidate for Leichhardt Matt Smith has announced that one of the country’s busiest urgent care clinics will receive a boost in the form of funding for new staff as well as funding for cancer screening in The Cape. Photo: Dylan Nicholson

Mr Smith also announced the government would invest $2 million in preventive health programs in Cairns and Far North Queensland, helping to boost the availability of important programs such as cancer screening and skin cancer checks.

Mr Marles said the clinic in South Cairns was helping to ease pressure on the Cairns hospital, where 38 per cent of presentations in 2023-24 were for the kind of urgent, but not life-threatening issues that Urgent Care Clinics are equipped to treat.

“That is a win/win outcome for the emergency department and for the people of Cairns,” he said.

Since the Cairns South Medicare Urgent Care Clinic opened in December 2023, the clinic has already treated more than 20,000 patients, averaging around 45 people each day.

“That’s 20,000 people who did not end up in our emergency department, taking pressure off of our hospitals,” Mr Smith said.

The government has previously announced it will open another 50 Medicare Urgent Care Clinics including a new clinic Cairns which will open in the 2025-26 financial year, most likely in the northern suburbs.

Mr Smith said it wasn’t his decision to make, he believed Smithfield was the “logical choice” for the new clinic.

“It’s at the bottom of the hill from Kuranda and you can pool down from Mossman and it’s close to draw from the northern beaches just to the north and south,” he said.

Originally published as Additional funding to boost staffing at Edmonton Urgent Care Clinic, Cape cancer screening