Wyndham residents will be Australia’s hardest hit if the federal government’s proposed GP co-payment and changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme go ahead, according to federal Lalor MP Joanne Ryan.
The Labor MP said Health Department figures revealed the changes would cost Lalor $52 million over four years, or an average of $297 per person.
The Medicare co-payment fee of $7 for GP visits, blood tests and X-rays was announced in this year’s federal budget.
Meanwhile, from next year, some patients will have to pay an extra $5 for PBS-subsidised prescriptions, while PBS safety net threshold amounts will also rise.
“The combination of Tony Abbott’s new GP tax and his medicines price hike mean sick Australians will pay more,” Ms Ryan said.
“It’s a cruel and heartless hit on those in Lalor who can least afford it – the sick and the vulnerable.
“The GP tax and hospital cuts will increase emergency department waiting times and reduce the number of hospital beds across Lalor.”
As reported by Star Weekly in May, figures from the National Health Performance Authority reveal that the majority of Wyndham residents rely on bulk-billed GP clinics for their healthcare.
The authority’s figures show that in 2012-13, 91 per cent of doctors’ appointments in the South Western Melbourne Medicare Local (SWMML) area, which covers Wyndham and Hobsons Bay, were bulk-billed.
SWMML chief executive Gaylene Coulton warned that introducing a $7 co-payment for GP visits and other health services from July, 2015, would directly affect the people who could afford it the least, and people might put off seeing a doctor.
“Best-practice evidence shows that primary healthcare is the most economical way to manage the high cost of health service delivery,” she said.
Wyndham Vale single mum Kerry Arch, who runs a national support group for single parents, said the co-payment would make visiting the doctor too expensive for some families.
“We will have single parents who are living on such a tight budget that they can’t afford to take their children to the doctor,” she said.
