Indigenous clinics vow to waive GP co-payment

Nganampa Health Council has warned that no one will visit a doctor in remote Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara lands (in South Australia) if it is forced to charge a $7 GP co-payment. Locals simply cannot afford it.

The council’s medical director, Paul Torzillo, told the ABC that the organisation will refuse to charge the fee at its clinics. However, absorbing the cost may seriously affect the viability of the council’s medical services and hamper its ability to provide vital health programs.

“The $5 cuts in the standard Medicare item numbers and the proposed $7 payment for every pathology test and diagnostic imaging procedure will equate to a cut of about $1 million a year to our core funding”, said Ms Ah Chee, CEO of the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress.

The Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal Health Service in the ACT has also decided not to charge co-payments to its patients. The organisation treats an average of 130 people per day, which means it will have to absorb a yearly loss of around $350,000. Chief executive Julie Tongs predicts that they may have to cut one or two doctors from their already busy practice to cover part of the shortfall.

A joint statement from 11 Indigenous organisations, which held an emergency meeting in May to discuss the effects of the budget, pointed out, “For every [health] dollar spent on non-Indigenous Australians now, only 60 cents is spent on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.”

Australia’s peak body for Indigenous health, the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, is unsure whether some of its 150 medical centres would lose their tax-exempt status if they were forced to charge a fee.

The appalling state of Indigenous health funding thus looks likely to become even worse under this government.