Kimba launches video to entice a GP with offer of rent-free house, clinic

Kimba – population 1200 – is on a nationwide hunt for a GP. And there’s quite the sweetener if you’re the one for the job.

Kimba wants a doctor — and it wants the nation to know.

The district council of the Eyre Peninsula town — population 1200 — has launched a national search for a GP offering a rent-free two or four bedroom house and rent-free use of a multidisciplinary medical centre with seven consulting rooms which has just had a $1m upgrade.

The council has commissioned a slick video “That’s Our Kimba” featuring local talent highlighting the area’s attractions including its friendliness and vibrant community spirit as well as the medical centre and house.

It notes South Australia’s reigning Agricultural Town of the Year and KESAB Sustainable Community/Tidy Town of the Year was also named Australia’s Friendliest Community and Best Remote Area to Live in a Queensland University study.

The cereal farming belt town has been without a GP since 2020 and relies on locums.

Kimba operates under the Mid Eyre Model, which works with regional partners Cowell, Cleve and Elliston providing support for medical practitioners.

Kimba’s search comes as SA Health advertises for an experienced GP for the Lameroo-Pinnaroo district on an annual salary package of up to $750,000.

The Lameroo-Pinnaroo GP would be employed by the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network and work in the clinic owned by the network as a salaried employee.

In contrast the Kimba job would see the GP set up as a small business operator, with their own decisions on things ranging from staff to whether to charge a gap or bulk bill patients.

Kimba Mayor Dean Johnson said the video campaign will run through social media, medical networks and peak practitioner bodies.

Kimba Town Council mayor Dean Johnson at the Big Galah. Picture: Robert Lang

“Kimba is a can-do community,” Mr Johnson said. “We can’t sit on our backsides to wait for a GP to come to us. We decided to show GPs what we’re made of and how we’ll make them at home with us.

“We struck on the idea of making our own video and put the call around town for volunteers to front the camera and tell our story.”

The video features local people at work, play, school, helping out and relaxing, with a shout-out for a GP to join their community.

The town’s silo art and Edward John Eyre sculptures, the Big Galah at the halfway point on the road between Sydney and Perth and its proximity to the ocean and the Gawler Ranges are also showcased.

“Kimba needs a permanent, full-time GP for continuity of care and preventive health care,” Mr Johnson said.

“Our new doctor will join a community that values them and they’ll have access to a support

network of fellow GPs and medical professionals across Eyre Peninsula.”

The video notes the planned construction of Australia’s National Radioactive Waste Management Facility, to hold material largely generated by Australia’s nuclear medicine program, will create about 180 construction jobs and 45 full-time-equivalent jobs once operational.

Originally published as Kimba launches video to entice a GP with offer of rent-free house, clinic