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Article: NSW: Emergency departments take on bulk-billing fallout
- Article from:
- AAP General News (Australia)
- Article date:
- November 19, 2002
CopyrightProvided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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NSW: Emergency departments take on bulk-billing fallout
SYDNEY, Nov 19 AAP - Hospital emergency departments were having
to hand out medical
certificates and fill repeat prescriptions because patients couldn'
t find a bulk-billing
GP, doctors said today.
NSW Health Minister Craig Knowles today challenged the federal
government to solve
the growing medicare crisis, saying the desertion of bulk-billing
by GPs corresponded
to an increase in the demand on emergency departments.
"The numbers of bulk billing doctors turning away patients and
leaving practice are
no longer just declining, they're plummeting at an absolutely staggering
rate," Mr Knowles
said.