Tassie aged care homes losing money, Labor plans urgent care clinics

Labor has revealed that three ‘urgent care’ clinics, which would fill gaps between unavailable GPs and overloaded emergency departments, would be located in Tasmania if it’s elected.

Labor has announced three ‘urgent care’ clinics, boasting guaranteed bulk billing and extended hours, intended to fill the gap between GPs and overloaded emergency departments, would be located in Tasmania if it forms government on May 21.

Speaking outside the Launceston General Hospital on Thursday, opposition aged care spokesman Clare O’Neil MP said the clinics, which would be co-located with existing GP surgeries, would be located in greater Hobart, Burnie and Launceston, and would open in 2023–24.

Labor plans 50 such clinics nationwide, which would be open between 8am–10pm and bulk bill.

“They will help people important urgent medical issues like broken bones, sprains, minor burns,” Ms O’Neil said.

“So if your son has a skateboarding accident 7pm at night and breaks his arm, you can go to an urgent care clinic rather than the emergency department (where you might) wait for five hours.”

The clinics would fill in the “missing middle” between GP clinics – many of which outside Tasmania’s urban centres are not seeing new patients – and overloaded public emergency departments, all of which in Tasmania are failing to meet most benchmarks for seeing patients in clinically recommended times.

Each clinic would receive $750,000 block funding per annum, on top of existing Medicare rebates, to operate the services.

The total cost of funding the clinics would be $135m per annum.

Quizzed how the clinics would be staffed, given Tasmania has a well-known shortage of GPs, Ms O’Neil said staff would come from the existing pool of GPs and graduates, who would be attracted to the clinics due to the advanced medical work being done there.

The announcement was criticised by Liberal Bass MP Bridget Archer, who said the “numbers (i.e. funding) is not going to get them where they say they’re going to go”.

“It’s very light on detail,” Ms Archer said.

However, the policy earnt the enthusiastic support of Launceston residents Carole Fuller and Leonie Napier, who shared the experiences of family members who saw first-hand the strain on LGH’s emergency department.

Ms Fuller said her husband, about three weeks ago, was advised to see the ED due to heart problems, but when he arrived, he was advised there was a four hour wait, so he walked back home.

Ms Napier, meanwhile, said her brother, who was visiting from Sydney, had a gall bladder attack – he was “violently ill” and attended LGH where he had to wait nine hours at triage as there were no beds available.

He was simply administered occasional pain relief and didn’t get his gall bladder removed until he returned home.

Both women said their husband and brother respectively would have jumped at the chance to attend an urgent care clinic, both for their own medical issues and to take pressure off LGH.

The Australian Medical Association Tasmania was contacted for comment.

TO THE WALL: TWO-THIRDS OF TASMANIAN AGED CARE HOMES LOSING MONEY

Labor’s aged care spokeswoman has used a visit to a key northern Tasmanian marginal seat to keep up the pressure over the Coalition’s “neglect” of the sector, while also revealing a key opposition proposal to support the under-pressure workforce “can’t (be) costed”.

Speaking at Launceston alongside Labor’s candidate for Bass Ross Hart, aged care spokeswoman Clare O’Neil reiterated the opposition’s commitment to fully fund any wage increase for employees in the sector, after last year’s Royal Commission Into Aged Care Quality and Safety recommended the measure to retain and attract staff.

The Fair Work Commission is currently considering whether to do so in a case brought forward by the Health Services Union and Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.

Ms O’Neil said there was an oncoming train rushing down the tracks towards Australian aged care homes, 66 per cent of which in Tasmania (60 per cent nationally) lost money in the six months to December 2021, according to aged care consultancy Stewart Brown, which also recorded a year-on-year rise of 26 per cent in Tasmanian homes losing money in 2020–21.

Labor aged care spokeswoman Clare O'Neil MP, candidate for Bass Ross Hart and Tasmanian Senator Helen Polley speaking at Launceston about aged care. Picture: Alex Treacy

“Rural and regional homes (65 per cent of which lost money in the six months to December 2021) are particularly at risk as they are about to face increased costs because workers are about to get a payrise,” Ms O’Neil said.

“But the Coalition government have refused to commit to funding the (pay rise).

“It puts at risk the viability of aged care homes in Launceston and surrounding areas.”

However, Ms O’Neil revealed that, due to the independence of the FWC, the commitment to fund any wage increases in the sector “can’t (be) costed”.

“Politicians don’t set wages,” she said.

A represenative for Aged Care Minister Richard Colbeck suggested this could be as much as $20bn per annum and linked the commitment to an alleged threat by the HSU to “pull its campaign funding”.

“The Prime Minister has been clear from the outset that the Coalition would honour the decision from the FWC and allow the independent wages umpire to make its decision,” they said.

That is Labor’s position too – the key difference being who would fund the pay rise: government or the private sector?

And with 66 per cent of homes in Tasmania losing money, Labor argue the answer can’t be the latter, unless Australians are willing to accept the possible closure of dozens of marginal facilities outside the nation’s capitals.