Inner Melbourne Medicare Urgent Care Clinic Worked Well With No Charge

A week after I had a minor health problem looked at by a Canberra Health Walk-in Centre, I had a recurrence and needed more treatment. I was visiting another city on Saturday night. Not knowing what else to do I went to the emergency department of the relevant specialist public hospital, where I had been treated 40 years before. I was promptly seen by a triage nurse who took a few details. About twenty minutes later I was examined and told the doctor would likely prescribe what the nurse practitioner did in Canberra. However I then sat for an hour and half waiting to be seen by a doctor. From the number of people waiting I estimated I would not be seen for another ten hours. So I apologized to the nurse at the desk & left.

In the interim I discovered there was a Inner Melbourne Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, which opened 8am Sunday. So I would be able to be seen there, before it was likely the emergency staff of the hospital would get to me. At exactly 8am the next day the door opened at the clinic. There was more admin, thanin Canberra, having to fill in a HotDoc based form, but not too hard. About ten minutes later I was examined by a doctor and prescribed what I had previously taken. In Canberra I had been simply handed medicine, but here I had to find a pharmacist in a strange city on a Sunday morning (difficult, but not impossible). 

I continue to be impressed with Medicare Urgent Care Clinics. They do what they are designed for: to divert people who do not have life threatening conditions from hospital emergency departments. It is not that these people, including me, are turing up at hospital for the fun of it, we just don't have anywhere else to go. 

One aspect which needs work is electronic medical records. The Canberra clinic apparently did not have my hospital records despite being in the same hospital system. The Melbourne hospital had my name and address on file, but had retained no details of my previous treatment. The Melbourne clinic had none of my medical details, despite my approving they have access to my digital health record and Medicare details.