Night clinic soon

By Kath Gannaway
AN AFTER hours medical service will open at Healesville Hospital ahead of a purposebuilt facility being built within the hospital grounds next year.
Announcing $640,000 of Federal Government funding for the project on Monday, McEwen MP and Minister for Small Business and Tourism Fran Bailey said the service would open soon.
Ms Bailey said the Healesville clinic was phase one of a project that would provide the Yarra Valley with after hours medical services.
Phase two of the plan, she said, was to extend the provision of after hours services to a second site in Yarra Junction.
“It has been a long and difficult process to deliver this service and I want to thank the community for their patience, persistence and supporting my fight to get this service,” Ms Bailey said.
The news of a Healesvillebased clinic has been welcomed as the best outcome for residents throughout the valley by the Eastern Ranges GP Association’s manager of GP services, Kristen Michaels, and the chairman of the organisation’s Out of Hours Committee Dr John Lockwood.
But Gembrook MP Tammy Lobato has branded it “a sick joke” on Upper Yarra residents.
“The member (Ms Bailey) promised an after hours GP clinic for the Upper Yarra, making specific reference to its location as Woori Yallock,” Ms Lobato said, citing a statement by Ms Bailey in March this year that she had been working for four years to establish “a muchneeded after hours GP clinic in the Upper Yarra”.
“Today her wording is altered and refers to the need being held by the ‘Yarra Valley’.
“This announcement has nothing to do with the need by residents in the Upper Yarra in their basic human right to access health services,” Ms Lobato said.
“There is a very clear distinction between an after hours service next to Healesville Hospital and that of her promise for an after hours GP clinic in Woori Yallock. The areas of greatest need, the Upper Yarra, will not benefit from this service.”
Dr Lockwood said the service was the culmination of four years of hard work and defended the placement, saying it was logistically the most realistic location.