GP Super Clinic criticised

A Senator has launched a strong attack on a newly opened Clarence GP Super Clinic in Tasmania, saying its shortcomings show that its $5 million funding would be better spent on existing GP practices.

Liberal Senator for Tasmania David Bushby said there were “serious reports surfacing of mismanagement and a decline in overall health care facilities” for patients on the Eastern Shore of Hobart.

The Senator claimed that the Super Clinic was rejecting patients with more complex needs, and refusing to conduct home visits. He said there were no female doctors at the practice, which had decreased in size from eleven GPs to two when it replaced another clinic in the same location.

Senator Bushby said the new clinic was also failing to provide multi-disciplinary care and had stopped providing training facilities for new doctors.

“The Liberal Party has consistently maintained that the GP Super Clinics were a waste of money and fail the cost/benefit test required for the effective use of taxpayer’s money and we have stated all along that this money would have been far more effectively used through an infrastructure grant program for existing practices to bolster their services,” he said.

Health minister Nicola Roxon has rejected the Senators criticisms as incorrect, saying the clinic already has three GPs and a female GP is about to start.

She said the new clinic was seeing more than double the number of patients routinely seen at the previous Clarence Community Health Centre and services were expected to continue to grow. The Super Clinic was also planning to take medical students next semester, she added.