TOWNSVILLE’s long-awaited GP Super Clinic is set to open although Federal MP Ewen Jones still questions its worth.
Cairns-based medical practice operator Dr Evan Nicholls announced yesterday the super clinic, developed in a former car showroom and workshop at Hermit Park, would open on June 23.
It comes six-and-a-half years after it was announced by Labor’s then regional development spokesman Simon Crean. Dr Nicholls said they were delivering on their brief.
“Our brief was to improve access to medical care for the citizens of Townsville and that’s what we intend to do,” he said.
“We will be starting with approximately eight doctors, operating from 8am to 9pm every single day. We will completely bulk bill. Every single service which is carried out will be totally free.”
A modern 1500sq m medical centre has been developed at the 87 Charters Towers Rd address.
Dr Nicholls said about $10 million had been spent redeveloping the former showroom with $5 million in federal funding and $5 million from his group.
Dr Nicholls said the practice would have plenty of allied health care workers in attendance although its PBS-licensed pharmacy would follow shortly and the use of about 700sq m of space was yet to be decided.
There was also space for a coffee shop with the ability for outdoor dining on a patio facing Clarendon St and Charters Towers Rd.
It would be a “relaxing, family-friendly, fun place to be”, Dr Nicholls said. “Just because we do medicine … we are not inherently serious all the time.”
While the Nicholls group had signed an agreement with the Federal Government in 2009 for another site which did not proceed, Dr Nicholls said the current site had taken about three years to develop.
“We had to make sure the site was clean and fit for the purpose it was going to be,” Dr Nicholls said. They were still trying to obtain approval for overseas-trained doctors to work in the centre, he said.
Townsville-based federal LNP MP Ewen Jones said if the clinic did not bulk bill “every person” and open 24 hours a day, it would not achieve its original aim of taking pressure off the Townsville Hospital’s emergency department.
“Once again the previous Labor government rolls these things out, rolls the money out and they don’t care what happens,” Mr Jones said.
Labor promised the clinic would include privately practising GPs with after-hours services, chronic disease management services and allied health services, such as physiotherapy, dietitians and podiatry.