FAMILIES from across the City of Maribyrnong have made more than 3600 calls to a 24-hour health service phone line in the past year.
Vomiting, fever, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea and chest pain topped the list of conditions for which residents sought medical advice.
The State Government introduced the Nurse on Call service to help people make decisions on health conditions.
Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said the service helped residents decide if they needed to attend hospital or a doctor straight away, whether their illness or condition could be treated by a general practitioner the next day, or if they could manage it themselves.
Calls from the City of Maribyrnong accounted for 12 per cent of calls made in the West.
The latest figures show Brimbank residents made the most calls to the service with 15,838 calls, ahead of Wyndham with 9458, Moonee Valley with 7691, Hobsons Bay with 5942, Melton with 2926 and the City of Melbourne with 2475.
According to the figures released by the state government the phone line service helped to free up more than 6700 hours of hospital nursing time, with most calls received on Sundays.
Nurses who answer the calls have access to clinical decision support software to provide them with the latest medical information to guide judgment, plus access to the Better Health Channel medical advice database.
Residents can ring the line 1300 60 60 24 direct, or can be transferred if they ring a hospital and their query can best be handled by Nurse on Call.
