Access to public Hospital and Healthcare Services
The Minister for Health and Ambulance Services, the Hon Ms Yvette D’ath MP, has agreed to provide access to public health services free of charge for all new Ukraine arrivals in Queensland on visitor or 449 visas who are without access to Medicare or medical insurance. This enables access to Queensland Hospital and Health services state-wide at no cost. This does not include primary health services such as general practitioners.
To enable the waiving of fees and charges, Ukrainian nationals will be recognised as people “seeking asylum” when accessing Hospital and Health Services. Queensland Health have prepared the Public Healthcare Access – Ukrainians in Queensland without Medicare fact sheet about what to do when accessing hospitals for you to share throughout your community.
This will be an interim arrangement until the Commonwealth Government can transition people to humanitarian visas and provide access to Medicare.
More information about the health services available can be found here: Public Healthcare Access – Asylum seeker Healthcare and Services | Queensland Health.
Quarantine fee waiver
The Minister has also agreed to waive quarantine costs for the Wellcamp Queensland Regional Accommodation Centre (QRAC) for Ukrainians regardless of visa type, including retrospectively, for anyone who arrived since 1 December 2021. International arrivals who do not meet vaccination requirements are required to undertake a period of quarantine at QRAC. Information about the quarantine requirements for unvaccinated international arrivals can be found here: COVID-19 advice for international arrivals to Queensland | Queensland Government (www.qld.gov.au)