Wodonga Priority Primary Care Centre seeing more than 200 patients a week

The Wodonga Priority Primary Care Centre, designed as an alternative to overrun hospital emergency departments, said most of its patients heard about the clinic through word of mouth and social media.

In February the centre was visited by 122 patients in four weeks.

The clinic, operated by Sarkon Medical Centre in partnership with Albury Wodonga Health, is a free service for people who do not have a Medicare card such as temporary residents.

Clinic director, Niranjan Sarjapuram, said the centre had six doctors and an obstetrician working on rotating shifts.

"Anyone can come in, with or without Medicare so if someone walks in with a chest pain or whatever they can just come in and get treated," Dr Sarjapuram said.

Priority Primary Care Centres (PPCCs) operate under the same guidelines as Urgent Care Clinic (UCCs) which are federally funded.

Federal member for Indi MP Helen Haines, visiting on Thursday, August 17, said she was on a fact-finding mission to "see how the clinic was going".

"This clinic is state-funded but all health is connected and the single biggest issue people always raise no matter where I go in the electorate is health care," Dr Haines said.

"So I make it my business to go out and find out and I'm delighted with what I've seen today.

"This is a service right in the heart of where people are, it's easy to access, it means people can get health care at the time that they need it and it takes pressure off our emergency departments.

"Apart from having really great accessible care for people people getting car when they need it, it reduces the impact of things getting worse.

"It helps to take the pressure off emergency departments."

Sarkon Medical Centre representative Ellen Hudson said the clinic was not designed to be a substitute for people's doctors but could play a role if people had trouble accessing their GPs.

"We don't replace your GP - we don't do follow-up care, you should see your GP for that," she said.

"So if you need to be seen, but you don't need the emergency department and you can't get into the GP you can see us.

"For example, if you played soccer yesterday and you fell over and you didn't feel intense pain immediately but in the morning just didn't feel right, you could come to us.

"If you're at home and you're cutting up fruit and have an accident, you can come here to get some stitches."

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