New primary care clinic planned for Kaleeya Hospital in East Fremantle

19/1/99

Residents in the south metropolitan area will have easier access to after-hours health services as a result of plans to establish a new primary care clinic at Kaleeya Hospital in East Fremantle.

Health Minister John Day said today Fremantle residents would greatly benefit by an after-hours general practice clinic close to home.

Mr Day said the State Government supported the Fremantle Division of General Practice in establishing an after hours GP clinic at Kaleeya Hospital.

"The Fremantle Division of GPs, comprising doctors working in the Fremantle areas, will provide high quality after-hours medical care from the hospital," he said.

"The new service will ensure easy access to the general public and has the added advantage of back-up specialist support and diagnostic facilities such as radiology and pathology - after hours.

"The people of the south metropolitan region deserve to have a comprehensive, state-of-the-art public health service close to where they live."

Mr Day said the State Government was committed to ensuring all Western Australians had access to 24 hour-a-day health care, seven days a week.

"The establishment of primary care clinics, such as this one, will assist in our objective to make health services as accessible as possible," he said.

The Kaleeya facility provides similar services to other metropolitan after-hours primary health care centres which have been established at Joondalup, Armadale, Hollywood and St John of God sites at Subiaco and Murdoch. It will also complement the Health Department's 'Health Call Centre' phone triage facility for the metropolitan area, planned for early this year.

"The aim of the after-hours service is to support GPs in providing the highest quality medical and health care to their patients and community," Mr Day said.

Media contact: Mark Thompson on 9213 6600