Health Minister Lawrence Springborg has singled out the Yulu-Burri-Ba Indigenous Health Centre at Capalaba as an exemplar model for the future.
Mr Springborg returned to the centre on Tuesday after guaranteeing the service $200,000 for dental equipment and a sterile vaccine freezer, when he was in the electorate on Sunday.
The vaccine freezer, to be installed at the centre’s nearby Mums and Bubs clinic, will save mothers from trekking across busy Finucane Road to the centre to get their children vaccinated.
The money will also go to dental chairs at the centre which offers dental and diabetes clinics, mole scans, vaccinations and has a defibrillator.
“Services such as this should be more commonplace – it’s a one-stop shop where all non-acute health needs are met,” Mr Springborg said.
“Two decades ago, these types of multi-dimensional practices were not so commonplace but this idea of a one-stop shop, where you can get all of your needs addressed by someone who knows you, will become more common.
“We have a lot of people in the system waiting to see a specialist but with better wait-list management most will be out of hospital and back into clinics such as this faster.
“We cannot have a fragmented health care system and we encourage the hospitals and other services to work with successful models such as this one (Yulu-Burri-Ba).
“This is the only way to address health care in the future and ultimately the only way everyone accesses health care,” he said.
Capalaba MP Steve Davies said the service had doubled in size since it first started in 2012 and the money was crucial to allow it to keep pace with demand for holistic health care.
Institute for Urban Indigenous Health chief executive Adrian Carson said the centre played a role in “closing the gap” between indigenous health and the rest of the community.
“This minister has been a champion in a bi-partisan effort to close the gap in health, especially in south-east Queensland where there is the fastest indigenous population growth and more than 70,000 indigenous people,” he said.
“We can’t afford not to get on the front foot and keep funding services that work – regardless of which political party is in office.”
Mr Carson said the centre was leading the way in making healthy lifestyles a priority for the indigenous community and offered free health check-ups at sporting events.
