Residents back proposal for bulk bill medical centre

Mindarie and Merriwa Medical Centre principal Melad Benyamine hopes to open a clinic with eight full-time doctors, doctor training, X-ray, pathology, dentistry and pharmacy facilities by 2015.

‘This area is an area of shortage, compared to say our area in Mindarie. From Mindarie to Jindalee they have eight medical centres,’ Dr Benyamine said. ‘You end up having a lot of medical centres in a very small space and a lot of people disadvantaged in an area, such as Carramar (and Tapping), where there’s one or two medical centres.

‘We need to have sound distribution for the number of medical centres to the population numbers.’

According to the City of Wanneroo population report, Tapping and Carramar have a population of 16,925, while Mindarie and Jindalee have a combined population of 9575. Wanneroo planning director Len Kosova said there would need to be an amendment to the Drovers Market Place structure plan to approve a medical centre and that could take four to six months to be considered by the City.

Meanwhile, site owner Ray Jackson has submitted an amendment proposal asking the medical centre be passed as ‘out-of-centre’ under delegated authority to allow for instant planning approval.