Urgent care clinic to reduce pressure on Geelong hospital

RESIDENTS in Torquay, Armstrong Creek and the wider Surf Coast region will be able to get access to bulk billed care for urgent but non-life-threatening conditions closer to home if Labor is re-elected.

Health Minister Mark Butler visited University Hospital Geelong earlier this week to discuss Labor’s commitment to open a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Torquay by mid-2026, announced by Corangamite federal member Libby Coker earlier this month.

The clinic would join a proposed network of more than 135 urgent care clinics across the country, which includes the already established Belmont Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which sees about 300 people a week.

Mr Butler confirmed a location for the Torquay clinic would be determined by the Primary Health Network and said the project was not the same as the Torquay Community Hospital, an election commitment made by the state Labor government ahead of the 2018 poll. The hospital was due to be completed last year but the site in Torquay North remains empty.

“Decisions about where emergency departments are or are not established are decisions for state governments. They have the on-the-ground connections, they employ the staff and that’s a matter for them,” Mr Butler said.

“I understand they’ve [the state government] made a promise about that, and it would be great to see that delivered.

“Our [the federal government] job is to provide good care in the community, primary care in the community, and that’s why we’ve established this urgent care clinic network, the first time that Australia has adopted this model of care that is so common in other countries.”

As part of establishing the Torquay clinic, general practitioners would be invited to participate in an expression of interest process, and if successful, would receive additional Commonwealth funding “to satisfy those conditions in the urgent care clinic program”.

“We’re not about building new buildings,” Mr Butler said.

“We’re about tapping into the existing connections and experience that existing general practitioners have in a region like Torquay.”

Ms Coker said the clinic would save parents who need urgent care for their children from visiting busy emergency departments where they may have to wait hours for care.

“It is free, it is seven days a week, extended hours, and it will mean that your young child, who perhaps has broken their arms on their skateboard, can go to this urgent care clinic and get immediate treatment.”