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A previous closure had been partly blamed for a rise in abuse of general practice staff in the South Australian town.
Healthcare in Mount Gambier has been under pressure, partly due to the closure of an Urgent Care Clinic.
Relief may be in sight for a South Australian community where GP staff faced abuse linked to pressures on local healthcare infrastructure.
An Urgent Care Clinic (UCC) will reopen in the rural town of Mount Gambier, the Federal Minister for Health, Disability and Ageing Mark Butler confirmed last week.
The closure of the town’s previous UCC clinic in June was followed by a spike in abuse directed towards general practice staff, employees told newsGP in August.
The reopened UCC will be run by the local Hawkins Medical Clinic, following a tender process led by Country South Australia Primary Health Network.
According to the minister’s announcement, the UCC will start taking patients for urgent care ‘in the coming months once building works are completed’.
‘This clinic will help to ease pressure on the Mount Gambier and Districts Health Service, where over 47% of emergency presentations in 2023–24 were for semi-urgent or non-urgent conditions,’ it stated.
Jessica Bilal, who works as the practice manager at another general practice in the town, Village Medical Centre, was among employees who spoke out in August about the pressures and abuse encountered by staff at the clinic.
At that time, she said there had been up to 15 incidents in a single day, after all general practices in the town reportedly closed their books to new patients.
She told newsGP news of the UCC reopening is ‘a welcome development for our community’.
‘It should significantly reduce the pressures on ED and local general practices by allowing patients to receive care quicker,’ she said.
‘We have strong confidence that Hawkins will make it a success.’
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