A re-elected Labor Government will deliver more funding to the Medicare Urgent Care Clinics in Lake Haven and Charlestown to boost their capacity to treat more patients.
The Lake Haven clinic has seen strong growth in patient numbers, treating more than 17,500 patients since it opened, and an average of about 45 people a day in recent weeks.
The Labor Party will expand capacity at Charlestown and Lake Haven as well as opening another 50 clinics nationwide, including one at Terrigal.
Health Minister Mark Butler said Lake Haven and Charlestown were two of the busiest clinics in the country.
“Labor will strengthen Medicare by delivering more bulk billing and more urgent care clinics,” he said.
The clinics have been branded as “wasteful spending” by the Liberal Party, with fears Peter Dutton will close them, forcing Australians back into the waiting rooms of busy hospital emergency departments, if elected.
Medicare Urgent Care Clinics are open seven days a week, for extended hours.
No appointment is needed; patients can walk in and all services are bulk billed, with no out-of-pocket costs.
Highly trained doctors and nurses are equipped to treat a range of conditions and injuries that need urgent attention but aren’t life threatening, such as a cut, a high temperature, a viral infection or a sprained ankle.
The Charlestown and Lake Haven clinics are helping to ease pressure on John Hunter and Wyong Hospitals, where more than two in five presentations were for semi- or non-urgent conditions in 2023–24. Nationally, the 87 existing Medicare Urgent Care Clinics have already seen more than 1.3 million people since the first sites opened in June 2023.
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