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  • 7 hours ago
It's a lifesaving service that's been thrown a lifeline. A Melbourne community health provider announced it would cease offering GP services at their Collingwood, Fitzroy, and Kensington clinics last month, meaning thousands of patients faced losing their regular doctor. Now, the federal government has stepped into help, but it's only a temporary fix to a bigger problem.

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00:00Rachel Croucher has an unenviable collection, 17 hospital wristbands in seven months.
00:09This is not an effective use of resources for hospitals, for general practice and for humans.
00:15She's one of around 12 and a half thousand patients who were horrified last month
00:20when CoHealth announced it could no longer afford to offer GP services.
00:25Today they got a lifeline.
00:27The Commonwealth will provide one and a half million dollars to be able to extend that pause to the end of July.
00:34But the money comes with strings attached.
00:37The other community health services in Victoria are not reporting the same financial predicament that CoHealth has reported.
00:46So we want to really have the opportunity to review their model of care.
00:50CoHealth says its model and Medicare don't fit as their patients have complex needs that can't be dealt with in a six minute session.
00:59We do as much as we can when that person is with us in the room because we don't know if that person is able to come back.
01:07Other community health services might not be in the same predicament yet, but they're already at capacity.
01:14And there's real concerns that if CoHealth closes for good, they might not be able to handle the thousands of patients coming to their doors.
01:22It is absolutely life saving. And not just life saving but psychologically as well.
01:28Seven months to make some big decisions.
01:31The Commonwealth of Trails
01:38The Commonwealth of Trails
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