Shortland MP Pat Conroy and Labor's Hunter candidate Dan Repacholi met with concerned residents at Toronto Diggers Saturday morning amid fears for the future of Lake Macquarie's GP Access After Hours service.
The forum, which drew around 50 community members, followed weeks of campaigning and a petition of more than 11,000 signatories collected by Newcastle MP Sharon Claydon to save the service as state and federal governments continued to point fingers at each other over questions of cuts to the service's funding.
GP Access, which is operated by Hunter Primary Care, provides after hours medical care and advice to residents of Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and the surrounding region from Maitland, John Hunter, Calvary Mater and Belmont hospitals, as well as the Westlakes Community Health Centre.
The Mater clinic was slated to close completely on December 24, while services elsewhere face reductions, attributed to - among other factors - government funding cuts, a freeze on Medicare Benefits Scheme revenue, and demand slowing during COVID lockdowns.
The NSW government has staunchly maintained that funding for the service was primarily a Commonwealth responsibility, while the federal Department of Health says any questions about the reduction in funding for the service should be directed to the state.
On Saturday, Mr Conroy squared responsibility for the Belmont and Toronto clinics' uncertain futures at his federal Coalition counterparts, saying more than half-a-million dollars in government funding to be cut from January 1 would force reductions to GP Access operating hours by nearly half on weekends and public holidays.
"Families and doctors have told me they are outraged, worried, and in disbelief," he said. "No one can understand why the Morrison-Joyce Government would cut the funding to this essential health service.
"This is just the latest attack on from Liberal-National Governments who seem content to continuously threaten the health outcomes of people in our community."
Mr Conroy also warned that the worst may yet be to come claiming federal Health Minister Greg Hunt's office currently holds a review which, if approved, would further reduce the service's remaining $4 million in funding to just $1 million.
Mr Conroy and Mr Repacholi said the service had saved the health system up to $21.7 million in unnecessary emergency department presentations each year, in a joint statement by Labor MPs as Ms Claydon's petition, which demanded the restoration of Commonwealth funding, was tabled in Parliament late last month.
"These clinics are as important for families as they are for our health system as a whole, as they take stress off emergency departments and reduce wait times for patients," Mr Repacholi told residents at the weekend.
"It beggars' belief that the Morrison-Joyce Government would attack the GP Access After Hours service during a global pandemic."
In an open letter dated November 5, the Hunter GP Association said the GP Access service had provided more than one million hours of urgent consultations to Hunter patients over 20 years, and was a "valued and much loved" part of the community.
Dr Fiona Van Leeuwen, the Hunter GP Association chair, said after hours medical care was "just as important as care at any other time of the day" and the reduction of the service "feels like the slippery slope of decline which we must not and cannot accept nor endure".
"We are concerned that decisions made with regard to funding after hours care may not serve us best," she said.
"Well managed after hours care saves lives, cost and workforce benefiting both daytime general practice care (federally funded) and the tertiary hospital services (state funded). Surely all funders can see the benefits of this system of care."
