Dr Vin Rajeswaran and Dr Ruth Nimbargi open up new doctor surgery FNQH Skin Cancer Centre at Trinity Beach
Two doctors have teamed up to open a new practice in an area of Cairns they found had the “least access” to healthcare in the middle of a doctor shortage in the region. KNOW WHERE IT IS
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TWO doctors have teamed up to open a new practice in an area of Cairns they found had the “least access” to healthcare in the middle of a doctor shortage in the region.
Dr Vin Rajeswaran has opened a new FNQH Skin Cancer Centre in Trinity Beach with
Dr Ruth Nimbargi.
Dr Rajeswaran said he opened because of the doctor shortage in Cairns. In April he said his business was barely breaking even because of the low Medicare rebates they got back.
“My accountant said I will go broke if I continue to bulk bill so we changed it to a mix billing model,” he said.
At the new clinic it will be mixed billing and will include a $40 out of pocket expense.
“We opened up the clinic there because we have 1200 patients we look after from the Tablelands, Smithfield and north,” Dr Rajeswaran said.
“It’s to improve access and make it easier for them. There’s a serious shortage of GP services in the northern beaches area. We found the northern beaches had the least access.”
Dr Rajeswaran said they would offer services from GP to skin cancer services including skin checks, skin cancer treatments, women’s health, kids health and chronic disease management.
“We are going to get some general practitioners that don’t do just skin so it will be a general practice with also some skin work,” he said.
“It can have seven doctors working at the same time, we are starting at four but will have seven and a pathology collection centre.”
Dr Rajeswaran said they were trying to move the doctor shortage by spreading out rather than opening another one in the city.
“We will be able to offer same day appointments at least for the start, or at least a smaller wait time than usual, we should be able to offer appointments better than a three to four week wait.”
Dr Ruth Nimbargi said they were getting inundated with patients at the DFO clinic because they had to close the Innisfail clinic due to the lack of doctors.
“We realised we had to decentralise and open up another clinic,” Dr Nimbargi said.
The clinic has been set up with multiple rooms and equipment needed for skin surgeries.
“We set it up so we can detect cancer with the right equipment,” she said.
Equipment includes the Vectra which is a machine used to identify melanoma and assess moles.
“It’s mainly really to encourage people to have their skin checks regularly because the rate of melanoma we detect is high,” she said.
“We have very good results, patients are very happy.”
Dr Nimbargi said they had already found 80 melanomas this year which was about one a week.
The new clinic is at Shop 2, 2-8 Trinity Beach Rd, Trinity Beach.
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Originally published as Dr Vin Rajeswaran and Dr Ruth Nimbargi open up new doctor surgery FNQH Skin Cancer Centre at Trinity Beach
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