| Labor will fund a super clinic |
| By Bendigo Weekly
Local News Labour will Fund Clinic #531
BUILD it and they will come. That was the message of the federal Labor Party this week as they announced a $5 million plan for the redevelopment of Bendigo’s Primary Care Clinic.
The new two-storey clinic will stretch from the Rising Sun car park on Arnold Street, to the
ambulance station on the Drought Street corner, providing an agreement can be made about the sale of Lansell Lodge.
It will feature privately-
practicing GP services, after-hour and bulk billed GP services, allied health and mental health practitioners, dental treatment and teaching spaces for medical training.
The aim of the new clinic is to ease the stress on Bendigo Health’s
accident and emergency department, by providing a larger and longer-opening alternative to what currently exists around the city.
Shadow Health Minister Nicola Roxon made the announcement at the Bendigo hospital on Tuesday and acknowledged it would not be an immediate cure to the city’s GP crisis, but was more of a long-term solution.
“We know in a very short time we are gong to have very large numbers of graduates coming on line,” she said.
“It will take time to build the facility, but in the next two years we are suddenly going to have a lot of graduates and if we don’t have the infrastructure in place to attract those graduates to come and work in these communities where there are shortages, and in general practises where there are shortages, we are never going to get them, we are going to lose the next generation of doctors.
“The timing is very important. We want to make sure those new young graduates are attracted to working in these areas.
“It is a long-term strategy for dealing with the GP shortages in the area, but it is one that can have a long-term solution as well, not just a quick fix that might last a couple of months.”
Ms Roxon said Labor’s plan was the result of consultation with the local community and health facilities.
“I am really pleased to be here and to be with so many community leaders who have worked hard on developing this project,” she said.
“The hard work this community has done in putting together a fantastic primary care proposal that is so consistent with the strategies Labor has been pursuing in the health areas has made it easy for us to make this
announcement today.
“Everybody knows if we can train young graduates in a general practice setting in their community they are more likely to stay. This is the sort of potential this project offers.”
Mr Gibbons said he was gratified the plan had come to fruition. “I helped establish the current facility back in the mid-’90s as a member of the then Bendigo Base Hospital board of management,” he said.
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