by Cam Lucadou-Wells
A Dandenong South clinic that’s diverting up to 500 patients a week from Dandenong Hospital emergency department is now being federally funded.
The Dandenong Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in the industrial-set Logis Boulevard has been formerly performing the same vital role as a state-funded Priority Primary Care Centre (PPCC) since 2023.
“Dandenong Hospital has a busy emergency department,” federal Attorney-General and Isaacs MP Mark Dreyfus said.
“With one in four presentations being for less pressing conditions and injuries, there is room to reduce the load on busy staff.
“A local Medicare Urgent Care Clinic will help divert patients from the hospital and ensure they’re treated quickly and professionally by highly trained doctors and nurses.”
Dandenong Hospital, which was being crushed during Covid’s peak period, has been a major beneficiary of the clinic.
ED wait times have since improved significantly, with the relief from ninetieth-percentile wait times dropping from a diabolical 122 minutes in January-March 2022 to 20 minutes in April-June 2024.
The Greens Medical Group-run clinic treats sports injuries, including broken bones, as well as minor ear, nose and throat infections, cuts, burns, sprains, burns, abdominal pain and gastro as well as eye injuries.
It also provides a cardiogram service, as well as X-ray and ultrasound imaging.
Since opening, its weekly patient list has quadrupled from about 120 a week to between 400-500.
There’s further scope to expand, with many residents still unaware of the free service, the clinic’s business manager Riekie Jooste said.
“What makes us so busy is we also run a GP service, so many of the non-life-threatening cases can be seen by our GPs.”
More than 40 per cent of Medicare UCC presentations are outside standard business hours such as nights and on weekends. One in four patients are under 15 years.
The clinic was “crazy busy” particularly on weekends while treating sports injuries, such as suturing wounds and plastering fractures, Jooste said.
The Dandenong clinic is one of seven PPCCs transitioning into a Medicare UCC, after a request from the Victorian Government.
The federal budget provided $227 million to expand the Medicare UCC program.
Federal Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said the clinic offered “high quality, timely and free care”.
“The Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is just one way the Albanese Government is strengthening Medicare in Dandenong; all patients need is their Medicare card for a completely free service.”
The clinic also provides free health care for refugees without Medicare cards.
Jooste said that funding was guaranteed for the next two years.
“Personally I don’t think it’s a program that will be stopped by either side of politics due to its success.”
The Dandenong Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is open 8am-10pm every day at 1/134 Logis Boulevard, Dandenong South.
