ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A young doctor at the Green Road Family Practice in the French Quarter has taken pity on an elderly member of our cosmopolitan desert community this morning by bulk-billing them for a 15-minute short consultation.
A quick consult at the popular medical practice can cost upwards of $110, which the patient then has to claim back themselves. A bulk-billing GP is a doctor who provides their services at no cost to their patients. Instead of paying for the appointment, the GP bills Medicare directly. Medicare is Australia’s national healthcare system that works to provide affordable healthcare for all Australians and tourists from friendly nations.
However, in this part of town, a bulk-billing doctor is fast becoming a rare commodity.
Roger Daley, a 75-year-old retired maths teacher, attended the Green Road Family Practice this morning to receive booster vaccinations for the upcoming cooler months. While he could’ve had them done at the chemist, Roger told The Advocate that he had a number of medical questions that only a doctor could try to answer.
“I think I might be getting carpal tunnel. Years of writing on chalkboards will do it to you,” he said.
“So after I got my shots, I asked Dr Cunningham about it.”
Dr William Cunningham has been a general practitioner for a number of years now and enjoys a reputation for being community-minded and pragmatic. Unlike countless other young doctors, he’s not just a rich kid with good recall memory. It’s why people like Roger always ask to see him.
“Dr Cunningham said he’d give me a referral to a specialist if I wanted. Or he’d give me a cortisone injection to see if that worked. Then he bulk-billed me for it,” he said.
“But he did ask me to kiss his feet for doing it. He asked me if there was anything else, I said no, he said righto and took off his shoes and socks and put his bare foot up on the table and asked me to kiss it,”
“Did I kiss it? You’re goddamn right I did. I kissed the sole of his foot, I even poked his arch with my tongue, and he let out a playful giggle. Stop! That tickles, he said. Mate, a bulk-billing doctor is hard to come by, before you judge me, and I also can’t be spending $110 here and there with reckless abandon. It is what it is.”
More to come.
