Thirty-one independent primary healthcare organisations will work with the Australian Medical Association,the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the states to identify pop-up clinic sites in regional,rural and urban areas across the country. They will receive $300,000 to help find and establish the sites and distribute personal protective equipment.
A new Medicare item will also be created so people at home in self-isolation or quarantine elsewhere can access health services and reduce the risk of exposure to others in the community.
The video-conferencing service,to start on Friday,will be fully bulk-billed,allowing medical,nursing and mental health staff to consult patients over the phone using services such as FaceTime,Skype and WhatsApp.
The measures come after theNSW epidemiologist whose work inspired the Trump administration's coronavirus response backed calls for Australians to self-isolate en masse,saying"low-cost social distancing"measures such as working from home were an efficient way to slow down the pandemic.
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Craig Dalton,a public health physician and clinical epidemiologist at the University of Newcastle,was stunned to learn on Tuesday that a paper he co-wrote,published last week,had been cited by US health authorities as the basis of its new public information campaign.
"You don't want to wait until people are forced to work at home,"he told theHerald andTheAge.
Associate Professor Dalton said"low-cost"measures such as tele-conferencing,staggering group events to avoid crowding and ensuring those who could worked from home would not hurt productivity but would potentially save the public health system from a surge in coronavirus cases.
Tele-health services will be available to people isolating themselves at home on the advice of a medical practitioner and people who meet the current national triage protocol criteria for suspected COVID-19 infection after consultation with either the national or state hotlines,registered medical or nursing practitioners or other trained health staff.
Australians aged over 70,Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged over 50,people with chronic health conditions,parents with new babies and pregnant women will also qualify for the treatment.
The service will initially run for six months,costing $100 million,before being reviewed.