In his seventh visit to Launceston since the beginning of last year, Shadow Health Minister Mark Butler believed he had a good sense of the health and aged care priorities of not only the city, but the North-East region as a whole.
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He said the Medicare rebate was failing to keep up with the costs of providing services, and was causing a profound ripple effect, felt in many other sections of the state's healthcare system.
"It's not only getting harder for Tasmanians to see a doctor, but the gap fees that people are paying out of their own pocket have skyrocketed by a third here in the Bass electorate," he said.
"They're up by more than 60 per cent to see a specialist too, and it's really hard to find a bulk-billed practice here."
Mr Butler said the unaffordability and low level of accessibility meant community members were resorting to the hospital in instances where urgent care might not have been necessary.
"It's so hard to get into a GP that if a child falls off a skateboard and breaks their arm, they end up at the LGH emergency department, which means people are having to wait several hours to be treated," he said.
"They don't need to be at a fully equipped emergency department built for people who have suffered heart attacks, strokes, been involved in major car accidents, or anything else of that nature."
Mr Butler said hospitals were also being overburdened by an influx of elderly patients, caused by lower levels of nursing staff at aged care facilities, which he said largely stemmed from federal funding cuts.
"Residents are left with no choice but to go to the ED, and then potentially stay in a bed there often for days, and even weeks, when they could have quite adequately have been dealt with at the aged care facility if there were more staff," he said.
"We've committed to making sure every facility has a registered nurse 24-hours, which is a Royal Commission recommendation that the federal government hasn't implemented, and we also want to help lift their wages, because that's crucial in ensuring job retention."
Mr Butler believed an additional solution could be found in the form of the network of urgent care services Labor planned to roll out across the country, including in Launceston.
"We'll ensure these are available in the community seven days a week, open until 10pm at night, and fully bulk billed," he said.
"This will free up the EDs."
In regards to a $20 million dedicated hospice for Northern Tasmania, Mr Butler said the reason it took Labor two attempts to pledge the required amount of federal funding came down to misinformation, despite the government accusing the opposition of "copying".
"The cost to build the hospice, which was committed by Tasmanian Labor at the last state election, was $5 million, and we had no information to suggest that figure had changed," he said.
"When it became apparent, through the resources the Tasmanian Liberal government has, that the cost of building it would be higher, and once that information was finally made public after they kept it to themselves, we were happy to match it."
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