Lyne MP renews push for Medicare urgent care clinic in Taree after Maitland opening

newy.com.au – The federal Member for Lyne has renewed calls for a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic in Taree, saying the Mid North Coast was being left behind after the Maitland Urgent Care Clinic officially opened on Thursday 11 December 2025.

In a statement on Friday 12 December 2025, the MP said the Maitland opening was “great news for the Hunter” but argued residents in the rest of the Lyne electorate still faced a gap in access to urgent care outside hospital emergency departments.

The MP said the Maitland clinic was a bipartisan commitment “supported by both parties going into the election”, and welcomed that communities including Lorn, Largs, Bolwarra, Hinton, Wallalong, Woodville, Butterwick, Duns Creek, Maitland Vale, Tocal, Paterson and Vacy would have the service nearby.

Attention then turned to Taree, with the MP noting the Albanese Government’s commitment of $1.4 billion over seven years to establish and operate 137 Medicare urgent care clinics. Excluding Maitland, the MP said no other federally funded Medicare Urgent Care Centre existed between Coffs Harbour and Newcastle, calling it “a significant healthcare chasm”.

The statement said the MP had written to Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler on two occasions seeking an urgent care centre for Taree, but “each response from the Minister’s Chief of Staff was in the negative”.

“The deliberations about the locations of the Albanese Government’s Medicare clinics are clearly political,” the MP stated, arguing the Coalition had promised an urgent care clinic in Taree during the campaign while Labor had not.

“There is no criteria or merit assessments behind these decisions,” the MP said, contending that if there were, “Taree, the largest town and geographically most central location within the Lyne electorate, which has the oldest population and one of the poorest in the country, would surely meet the criteria”.

The MP pointed to local hospital demand, stating that Manning Base Hospital had received more than 17,000 “low-acuity presentations” in the past 12 months. The statement said diverting even 30–50% of those cases to an urgent care clinic would remove 5,000–8,500 presentations a year from the emergency department, or about 13–23 a day.

The MP said another letter to Butler would be sent “with more persuasive data and evidence” and added: “I am still hopeful, and I look forward to working with Minister Butler to bring about this goal.”