The soaring long wait problem is near to crisis for the World Wellness Health and Medical clinic in Brisbane after losing 3 GPs in the past 6 months. The said clinic is one of 2 clinics south-east Queensland to treat patients looking for security as refugees.
Normally, the clinic is providing same-day schedules, however, an increase in demand resulted in 10 to 15 daily patients waiting for up to 7 to 10 days.
Associate Director of World Wellness Health and Medical, Dr. Megan Evans said that they are progressively concerned by the issue and the effects on their patients. They are not comfortable with the situation. To help unqualified Medicare and marginalised patients is part of their mission and core business. They can’t turn them away especially after seeing these patients experiencing difficulties acquiring healthcare. She also added that she loves working in the clinic because of the massive variety of patients.
She also shared that, she has treated imprisoned woman from the Middle East who went to Australia, a refugee family healing from malaria, a woman who survived from family violence, and one Australian-born suffering from a mental health problem. Dr. Evans finds it very fascinating and fruitful to serve patients that weren’t able to get access to good quality treatment.
“This is a great country and we should be able to provide quality healthcare to everyone. I’ve worked in private practice in other clinics and as a GP you have to deal with the fact you may have to close the door to that person, because they don’t have a Medicare card, are ineligible, or can’t afford to pay”, she added.
Mater Refugee Complex Care Clinic, which Dr. Evans used to work at is also always backed-up due to high demand.
