Gympie’s Henry Street Medical Centre shuts after 38 years
Decades of medical experience in the Gympie region is about to disappear with the closure of one 38-year-old clinic and the partial shutdown of another due to its GP’s ill-health.
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Decades of medical experience in the Gympie region will disappear with the closure of one 38-year-old clinic and the partial shutdown of another.
The retirement of Henry Street Medical Centre’s Doctors Jennifer Heritage and Roger Johnstone at the end of February is bringing an end to an extraordinary run of service to Gympie’s residents.
The clinic has been a fixture at Henry St, near the Gympie Hospital, for 38 years.
A statement from the clinic’s staff Friday said the Doctors Heritage and Johnston had tried to sell the surgery for the past three years, to no avail.
This instead forced them to close its doors from March 1.
“After years of dedicated service to the practice and the Gympie Community, Dr Jenny and Dr Roger extend a big thank you to all their medical colleagues, pharmacists, allied health professionals and patients of the Gympie region, who have supported them over the past 40-plus years, both, while practising from the Henry St Medical Clinic, as well as the Gympie General Hospital,” the statement said.
It wished Dr Heritage and Dr Johnston “all the happiness and continued success in their well-deserved retirement”.
“Roger has always expressed a desire to sit on his veranda just to watch the grass grow, and Jenny’s wish is to spend more
time with precious family – we hope their dreams come true,” the statement said.
It is the first of two major closure of a long serving doctor in the region following a decision by Dr Mary Piepers to shut her Gympie Central Medical Centre at the end of March due to “ill health”.
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In a statement on the Gympie Central Medical Centre Facebook page it was explained Dr Piepers would be “relocating on a part-time basis to the Southside Medical Centre”.
Patient files would be transferred to the Southside Clinic on April 1, the post said.
It expressed its gratitude for the support for Dr Piepers and the clinic’s staff.
“The overwhelming show of well wishes and the support since the news od Dr Mary’s ill-health has been truly heartening,” the post said.
“We have full confidence in her ability to make a complete recovery.”
Dr Piepers has been a fixture of Gympie’s health scene for more than 20 years.
She has worked in different corners of the region including Noosa, Cooroy and Imbil, and in 2016 she launched her own clinic.