Expert help at hand: Getting the right health advice when you need it most

With plenty of options available, all South Australians can today access the expert health advice and care they need – without necessarily heading to a hospital emergency department.

Expert health care is available for all South Australians - without the need to go to the ED. Pcture: iStock

An extensive range of health care services is providing a safe, reliable and efficient alternative to South Australians attending hospital emergency departments if they need urgent care.

Medicare Urgent Care Clinics, 24/7 pharmacies, Priority Care Centres, Child and Adolescent Virtual Urgent Care Service, the SA Virtual Care Service, a Virtual Women’s Assessment Service, SA Health Urgent Care Hubs, Medicare Mental Health Centres and Healthdirect services the health needs of all South Australians.

Care options are available virtually, and include services in metropolitan and regional areas, reducing the burden on hospital demand.

For many, knowing when to go straight to an emergency department, call an ambulance or wait to see their GP can be a dilemma. This uncertainty has historically created pressure on the state’s ambulance and hospital services.

To ease this pressure, Healthdirect Australia – the national virtual public health information service – provides free, trusted health information and advice over the phone or online 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Jointly funded by the Federal and all state and territory governments, the service has been helping people manage their health for more than a decade.

Healthdirect Australia Chief Medical Officer Dr Nirvana Luckraj says the service plays a crucial role in the health landscape.

“Many people are not sure how urgently they need care or what type of care is appropriate,” Dr Luckraj says.

“Healthdirect helps bridge this gap by guiding people to the right care at the right time, empowering them to make informed decisions and lead healthier lives.

“Importantly our service has positively impacted the healthcare system by safely diverting a significant number of callers from emergency departments to more appropriate care pathways.”

Aside from having an online “Symptom Checker” – which allows people to quickly and easily check their symptoms and get advice using a self-guided tirage process – a call to the Healthdirect helpline can quickly put people in touch with a registered nurse.

The nurse will ask a series of clinical questions and – based on the urgency of their respective situation – callers are then advised on how to best manage their health issue.

This could range from advice on how to best look after themselves at home to information on the type of medical help they might need, such as connecting them to the appropriate health service from a GP, virtual care pathway or urgent care. In an emergency, the caller is transferred straight to Triple Zero.

Callers to Healthdirect may be offered a telephone or video call back from a Healthdirect GP.

Virtual GPs can provide an e-prescription via SMS and can also upload prescriptions and a call summary to the caller’s My Health Record so it is available to their GP.

The Healthdirect helpline can connect callers to the various urgent care services available across the state, offering an alternative to attending an emergency department.

A Healthdirect nurse may advise a caller whose situation is urgent but not life-threatening to visit an urgent care service.

Nationally, the urgent care service receives around 1.4 million calls a year while the website has about 46 million sessions. The Symptom Checker is accessed 2.1 million times a year.

Dr Luckraj says that in SA, people most commonly call about fatigue, abdominal pain, headache, swelling and “feeling sick and queasy”.

“The most frequent users of the Healthdirect helpline are women aged 30 to 39 years, often calling about their own health, closely followed by parents seeking advice for their own children,” she says.

The Symptom Checker is most popular among people aged 20 to 29 years.

Across both the helpline and the Symptom Checker, usage spikes in winter due to searches related to colds, flu and other respiratory illnesses.

For more information visit healthdirect.gov.au

Urgent Care Clinics offer help for all

South Australians have various options to see a doctor or nurse if they need priority medical attention for an illness or injury that can be managed without a trip to the emergency department but cannot wait for a regular appointment with a GP. Picture: iStock

Six Medicare Urgent Care Clinics across the state are ensuring South Australians have greater access to urgent health care.

The clinics – at Elizabeth, Para Hills West, Marion, Morphett Vale, Mount Gambier and Royal Park – are open for extended hours seven days a week and offer walk-in treatment for non-life-threatening conditions.

All treatment is bulk billed for valid Medicare Card holders.

The clinics help to reduce pressure on hospitals and emergency departments, allowing them to focus on higher urgency and life-threatening conditions. Patients can walk into any Medicare Urgent Care Clinic for urgent care without the need for an appointment or referral.

Clinics are supported by highly skilled independent doctors and nurses, using excellent treatment and procedure room facilities.

The clinics give South Australians more options to see a doctor or nurse when they need priority medical attention for an illness or injury that can be managed without a trip to the emergency department but cannot wait for a regular appointment with a GP.

Medicare Urgent Care Clinics provide acute care and treatment for:

● Minor infections

● Minor fractures, sprains, sports injuries and neck and back pain

● Urinary tract infections (UTIs)

● Sexually transmitted infections (STIs)

● Minor cuts

● Insect bites and rashes

● Minor eye and ear infections

● respiratory illness

● gastroenteritis

● mild burns

Medicare Urgent Care Clinics won’t be able to see people for complex conditions. In these cases, patients’ own GPs should be their first point of contact.

Emergency or life-threatening care requires immediate medical attention and management by an emergency department or hospital.

If you or a loved one has a life-threatening injury or illness, call triple zero (000) or go to your nearest emergency department.

Medicare Urgent Care Clinic locations

● Elizabeth Medicare UCC – Elizabeth Medical & Dental Centre, 30 Philip Hwy, Elizabeth

● Para Hills Medicare UCC – Suite 1, Specialist Centre, 33 McIntyre Rd, Para Hills West

● Marion Medicare UCC – Marion Domain Medical & Dental Centre, 453 Morphett Rd, Oaklands Park

● Morphett Vale Medicare UCC – 1 Doctors Rd, Morphett Vale

● Mount Gambier Medicare UCC – Mount Gambier Family Health, 3/14 Crouch St S, Mount Gambier

● Western Medicare UCC – Old Port Road Medical and Dental Centre, 1202-1210 Old Port Rd, Royal Park

For more information, click here.

When to visit an emergency department or call triple zero (000)

● Chest pain or tightness

● Breathing difficulties

● Uncontrollable bleeding

● Severe burns

● Poisoning

● Unconsciousness or seizures

● Numbness or paralysis

● A life-threatening injury

● Ongoing fever in infants

● Unresponsive

24/7 pharmacy care the right prescription

Melanie Browning with son Mitchell outside National Pharmacies at Norwood – one of several 24/7 chemists in Adelaide. Picture: Russell Millard

Melanie Browning thought in this day and age, there must be a 24-hour pharmacy open somewhere in Adelaide that could help her son Mitchell, who was vomiting in the middle of the night.

Mitchell, 20, had already visited hospital a couple of days prior to treat severe dehydration symptoms but, as his vomiting had eased, they had not filled a script they were given. So, when his illness resumed at 3am that morning in February, she looked online for somewhere to fill the script to avoid another trip to a hospital emergency department.

“The thought of just sitting at hospital for hours was not great,” she says. “I thought, ‘Surely there’d be a 24-hour chemist, it’s 2025’ – and there was. I couldn’t believe it.

“I jumped in the car – I live in Dernancourt – and drove over to Norwood and it was just fantastic. They filled the script and I had a great chat with the pharmacist while I was there.

“It saved us a trip to hospital; we did not have to wait until 8am (to fill the script) and have him get worse – we were able to start getting him better.”

Three Adelaide pharmacies – National Pharmacies at Norwood, Chemist Warehouse at Clovelly Park and Chemist Warehouse at Saints Shopping Centre at Salisbury Plain – are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week as part of SA Health’s Community Pharmacy initiative.

As well as dispensing medicines and other pharmacy goods, pharmacists can provide their expert advice on healthcare options.

Browning says the advice provided by the pharmacist on duty that night was particularly beneficial to her son’s situation.

“Not that he was diagnosing him but the pharmacist was giving me his thoughts about what we could do and some advice on where to go from here, to make another doctor’s appointment – it was a full coverage of care from the pharmacist,” she says.

After seeing a doctor later, Mitchell discovered he had been suffering from a bacterial infection called Campylobacter bacteria, as the pharmacist had suggested.

Browning says the pharmacy’s security guard also made her feel safe in the unfamiliar location at that time of night, keeping the pharmacy locked while she was inside and then monitoring her until she returned to her car.

“The service is not only safe and readily available to people, but it’s so simple and easy,” she says. “Certainly having a chat with the pharmacist and getting things straight in your head, to me was just fantastic.”

She urges more South Australians to remember the service when they are considering whether hospital is the right option when they are ill.

“If there’s a reason that you don’t have to go to hospital and keep that queue (in the emergency department) from being so long, that would be a good thing for fellow South Australians because there’s just too many people waiting there that probably don’t really need to be there,” she says.

Can’t see the options? Click here to download.

Originally published as Expert help at hand: Getting the right health advice when you need it most