Eddie Russell
Melton residents can skip long wait times and travel with a free urgent care clinic now open at the Melton Medical and Dental Centre.
Open seven days a week from 8am to 10pm, the Melton Medicare Urgent Care Clinic (UCC) is available to people with non-life threatening conditions.
This includes patients with infections, sprains, broken bones, and minor burns.
ForHealth Victoria director Andrew Crow said the UCC would take the pressure off nearby hospitals in the west.
“About 50 per cent of the people that come here, which is 40 a day, say they would otherwise go to the emergency department,” he said.
“So from that point of view you are saving 20 people a day from going down to the hospital and clogging it up.”
The UCC was delivered by federal government funding and is bulk-billed.
Hawke MP Sam Rae said it was important for locals to have access to free healthcare that was both close to home and available after hours.
“It’s already challenging to get the right healthcare in outer suburban areas at the best of times,” he said.
“For me, it was a huge priority to get a UCC here to make sure that we are expanding on what the community has in terms of the broader health offering.
“Ever since we were elected, we have had a relentless focus on fixing Medicare… and we’ve seen that the urgent care model is a critical component in that.”
So far, the current federal government has provided $227 million on the expansion of the Medicare UCC program.
ForHealth chief executive Andrew Cohen said the centre “made a lot of sense as a service” for a number of reasons.
“For a non-admitted patient in an emergency department (ED), the benchmark cost is about $550. Our experience is that these deliver that for much less than a third of that,” he said.
“There is a cost saving, the patients love it, and there’s less crowding at the ED.”
Across the country, 40 per cent of visits to UCCs have been outside regular general practice open hours and one in four patients have been under the age of 15.
