By Olivia Condous
Melton residents are still being drastically affected by local doctor shortages, as the entire state’s healthcare system continues to struggle.
While the most recent crisis concerns the number of bulk-billing GP clinics across Victoria dwindling, many Melton residents have reported they can’t get an appointment at all.
Melton resident Aileen Battye said she travelled more than an hour to take her two year old son to see her previous regular GP in the eastern suburbs.
“Everytime my son gets sent home from childcare for a sniffle… it can be about two or three days before I can get him into our regular doctor,” she said.
“I can’t get anything local, so I’ve got to travel out of the area.”
“It means I have to take days off work for it and I still have to pay his childcare fees for those days as well,” Ms Battye said.
“It creates a lot of stress and pressure… [and] frustration.”
On a social media post, other Melton residents shared similar frustrations about a lack of available appointments locally.
“You can’t get an appointment anywhere, places aren’t taking new patients and when you try to book at your regular clinic they are booked out two plus weeks,” one resident said.
“This is why I travel to Gisborne to see a doctor, a few friends have started going there now, what a joke having to wait two plus weeks to see a doctor,” another resident said.
In a letter to Melton mayor Goran Kesic, Western Victoria MP Gayle Tierney said a solution to increase the number of local GPs was a “challenging issue.”.
“I fully appreciate that your community is experiencing substantive population growth, and this makes it even more imperative that a solution to increase the number of local GPs is explored and implemented,” Ms Tierney said.
