Labor welcomes the Governments expansion today of Medicare approved telehealth services to include midwives, new specialist services, and for eligible populations to access services at their regular clinic, not just with their regular doctor.

But todays announcement does not go as far as it should to ensure we are protecting health professionals while still delivering health services to all Australians.

The Government must expand telehealth appointments to be available for all Australians during this crisis.

We must be encouraging and incentivising anyone who is able to have their physical and mental health issues to be treated remotely and immediately to do so.

We should be discouraging the spread of disease. We should be keeping our health professionals safe and we should help them work from home if they can. We should be keeping our vulnerable populations safe.

We should be trying to alleviate pressure on the health system as much as possible during this difficult time.

Labor has been calling for an expansion of the telehealth package since it was announced last Wednesday.

Last Wednesdays announcement described the new eligible telehealth services as:

..for people in home isolation or quarantine, as a result coronavirus, to receive health consultations via the phone or video such as FaceTime or Skype.

The telehealth service will help contain the spread of the virus and it will be bulk-billed at no cost to patients and will be available from Friday 13 March.

These telehealth consultation services will be provided by doctors, both GPs and specialists, nurses and mental health allied health workers and will also be available under Medicare for people aged over 70, people with chronic diseases, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged over 50, people who are immunocompromised, pregnant people and new parents with babies.

Labor had been calling on the Government to implement telehealth measures before this announcement was made, and fully supports the measures that have been announced.

But more is needed to protect Australians.

The Government must increase these telehealth measures, it is critical in the containment of the disease, and they will have our full support if they do so.