$800k job with free house that nobody wants

A dire shortage in an Aussie town has seen it offer an eye-watering package of perks for a much-needed job.

The package includes an $800,000 salary as well as rent-free four bedroom house.

A rural town in Western Australia’s dire need for a doctor has seen it offer a eye-watering package of perks for the successful applicant.

The package includes an $800,000 salary as well as a rent-free four bedroom house to any medic who will take the job.

The Shire of Quairading, 170km east of Perth, has struggled for months to find GP after their long-term GP left.

The town is home to roughly 596 people.

And there are further financial incentives offered by the government of up to $12,000 a year if the GP stays for more than two years, and $23,000 if they stay longer than five years.

The town has roughly 600 residents and is among many such rural communities across Australia struggling to attract a doctor.

The entire nation is in the grips of a national GP shortage, forcing some towns to shut medical centre doors.

A town northwest of Quairading, Toodyay, had to shut its doctor’s surgery in November last year because the town could not find any GPs to keep it open.

Quairading Shire president Peter Smith told The West the council “will not stand by idle when the community has such a critical need”.

“If we don’t have a doctor, we won’t have a medical clinic, then we won’t have a hospital, we won’t have a chemist and so the demise will begin.”

Quairading is known as a typical wheatbelt town with a bulk grain storage facility, railway, a large, old hotel and a small number of shops servicing the surrounding farmers.

Attractions include huge granite outcrops (Mount Stirling), the Pink Lake, nature bushwalks and a large, privately build weir and dam.

Quairding is located about 170km east of Perth in Western Australia’s Whealtbelt.

Research by the Australian Medical Association projects a staggering shortage of 10,600 GPs by 2031 with the supply of GPs not keeping pace with growing community demand.

AMA President professor Steve Robson said there was a need for “long-term solutions to improve access to GP led care for patients, particularly in rural and remote areas that have been hardest hit by workforce shortages”.

In October a Queensland town offered a salary of $500,000, plus rent-free in a bid to secure a new GP to take up residence in Julia Creek, 600km from Townsville.