Labor announces ninth TassieDoc location, promises funds to save GP Assist program

Labor leader Dean Winter has made another health announcement in the state’s North. Read the latest as election day closes in.

Labor announces the latest location for TassieDoc and also their plan to support GP Assist - Dean Winter with GP Dr Vasuki Annamalai. Picture: Tasmania Labor Party

Labor leader Dean Winter announced the ninth TassieDoc location on Tuesday, just days before the election.

Mr Winter said Kings Meadows would be another location for people in Launceston to access 100 per cent bulk-billed health care.

“What’s clear is that Tasmania needs a fresh start,” he said.

“It needs change under Labor and needs delivering of TassieDoc clinics right across the state. We’ve announced TassieDoc clinics in Burnie, Devonport, Kings Meadows, Ravenswood, New Norfolk and Glenorchy to make sure Tasmanians can get access to these clinics wherever they live.”

Labor announces the latest location for TassieDoc and also their plan to support GPAssist - Dean Winter with GP Dr Vasuki Annamalai. Picture: Alison Foletta

Despite being a federal program, Mr Winter also announced Labor would step in to support GP Assist, an out of hours care system.

“GP Assist last year kept 11,000 Tasmanians out of emergency departments and without intervention from a Tasmanian Labor government, it will close,” he said.

Dr Vasuki Annamalai is a general practitioner, GP owner and has worked with GP Assist for the part five years said the system was so low tech, GPs were using their own emails to contact patients.

“At the moment our IT service systems are less than ideal, it’s less than what a GP clinic would have,” she said.

‘We even spend some times hours trying to log into the computer, which is not ideal because we’re wasting time on the phone to IT.”

Dr Annamalai she wasn’t sure why such basics were falling behind but it wasn’t from “a lack of asking.”

“This is our healthcare system and we want it to run well and to look after our community,” she said.

Mr Winter said Labor would contribute $4million a year to GP Assist in order to keep it functioning in Tasmania.

“If this isn’t fixed, then 11,000 more patients will end up in our emergency departments and it will make our emergency departments, which are already overstretched and overworked, overflow with patients,” he said.

Mr Winter said GP Assist will be upgraded to a virtual ED where doctors can video conference patients.

The plan will be to launch the virtual ED July 1 in 2026 and should Labor win the state election, they will contribute $2 million this year to “save GP Assist.”

Mr Winter said a Tasmanian Labor government needed to step in to save this federal program.

“It will cost more to lose this service than to save it,” he said.

“This goes to the fundamental of what we’re doing with healthcare. We need to revise more services in regional towns and suburbs where Tasmanians need it to take pressures off out hospitals.”