ED attendances will rise 27 per cent statewide if the new tax is introduced, according to a NSW Health report prepared for the  Department of Premier and Cabinet in May.

Opposition health spokesman Walt Secord said this would mean an extra 12,085 people would attend Maitland Hospital’s emergency ED for treatment each year.

“The GP tax will mean that waiting for treatment in emergency departments will get longer at NSW hospitals’ EDs as extra numbers of people will turn up for treatment for things they used to take to a GP,” he said.

The NSW Health report also noted that the government had only budgeted for a 2.9 per cent increase in ED attendees across the state.

But the federal government is yet to have the new tax passed in the Senate.

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner said earlier this month that Labor was using the GP co-payment to conduct a scare campaign.

She said NSW Health had developed rudimentary modelling of the potential impacts of a proposed GP co-payment on hospital EDs when the new tax was first suggested.

“The NSW Ministry of Health has undertaken no detailed modelling on potential impacts since the federal budget, handed down in May, and I have not commissioned any modelling,” Ms Skinner said.

Labor candidate for Maitland Jenny Aitchison said the extra ED numbers would put more pressure on hospital staff and resources.

“Thousands of people will be forced to turn up in emergency departments because they simply won’t be able to afford paying this unfair tax to their local GP,” she said.

“The GP tax is a bad policy for Maitland families.”

OPINION: Health funding is too important for political cycles