The RACP has voiced concerns that patients with long-COVID in Australia are being left without the necessary support following the closure of specialist clinics across the country.
Additional specific Federal and State/Territory funding for COVID ceased at the end of 2022, funding from within existing hospital agreements has mostly ceased, and the RACP noted that there were very few resources being invested in long-COVID care despite the Parliamentary report on long-COVID and repeated COVID infections.
“There are no long-COVID clinics operating in regional and rural areas of Australia, making it almost impossible to get help for these communities,” RACP President Dr Jacqueline Small said.
“We also know that nearly all the metropolitan long-COVID clinics have since shut down after a funding cut off in June this year.
“The height of the pandemic may be over – but that does not mean that people are not still suffering with long-COVID. It is a life-changing repercussion of COVID, and we must do better to support patients to manage it.
“It’s time for Federal, State and Territory Governments across Australia to step up and increase the funding for long-COVID clinics both in metropolitan areas but also in rural and regional locations, too.”
The RACP says that the Governments need to:
- Establish more multidisciplinary clinics, with virtual access, including to patients in rural areas and those being managed in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services.
- Develop coordinated tiered care including referral pathways, in which rehabilitation physicians, respiratory physicians and other acute physicians work together to provide optimum care.
- Develop training resources and evidence-based living guidelines for General Practitioners, allied health professionals and medical specialists regarding the diagnosis and management of long-COVID.
President of the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dr Jennifer Mann, noted that First Nations people, as well as those in regional, rural, and remote communities, where access to healthcare was an existing issue, were particularly vulnerable.
“COVID is not behind us: the longer-term health impacts of the pandemic are being felt across our communities and that is why we need to prioritise multidisciplinary care and training programs – for a future where world-class long-COVID care is a reality here in Australia, including access to rehabilitation services,” she said.
“We’re calling on a commitment from all levels of Government to increase funding and access to long-COVID care, so no one experiencing symptoms is left with nowhere to go.”
In similar fashion, the Government’s delivery of Australia’s Urgent Care Clinics, designed to ease the pressure on hospitals by providing bulk-billed primary care between the hours of 8am – 10pm, seven days a week, has drawn criticism from the shadow Health minister, Senator Anne Ruston, with more than half failing to meet the target operating hours.
For example, the Clarkson UCC website states, “Patients Please Note: We Strictly Cease Operating at 6pm. Depending on wait times we may not be able to accept patients from 5pm.”
“That is not the fault of the people that are operating that clinic — if they don’t have the staff to be able to do it, then of course they can only be open for the hours they have staff,” Senator Ruston told ABC News.
“But, once again, I’d call the government out for making a promise to this community that they were going to have access to an urgent care clinic from 8 o’clock in the morning until 10 o’clock at night and that is simply just not true.”
However, the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mr Mark Butler, while reiterating that “all 58 Urgent Care Clinics that we promised, will be operating seven days a week on a fully bulk billed basis,” explained that recruitment issues were still impacting capacity.
“We haven’t been able to flick a switch and have them all operate every single hour that we were promised,” he told ABC’s RN Breakfast.
“Some of them are indicating that they are going to take a little while to get to the full 8am-10pm hours as they recruit staff.
“Some have said we are going to open for a certain number of hours, but they are all operating seven days a week and as we recruit more staff, we will be able to extend those hours to the full range that we indicated would be an important part of our commitment.”