Snug Medical Centre set to close after GP retirement, patients bemoan loss of clinic

Yet another medical clinic in regional Tasmania will close its doors next month as a peak doctors’ body says general practice has become “non-viable”.

The Snug Medical Centre is set to close in September. Picture: iStock

Another general practice clinic in Southern Tasmania is set to close its doors, with local residents decrying the loss as a blow to the regional community.

Snug Medical Centre is shutting permanently in September after the retirement of veteran GP Dr Robert Hamilton.

The Mercury understands that HR+, which is contracted by the federal government to recruit and retain GPs in Tasmania, has helped the medical centre find a way forward beyond the closure and that remaining doctors at the Snug practice are planning to relocate to a new facility in the Channel region.

The Snug Medical Centre is set to close in September. Picture: iStock

A long-time patient of the clinic, who asked that her name be withheld, said she understood it had been deemed unviable for the other doctors to remain at Snug after next month and wished Dr Hamilton “all the best”.

“There are a lot of elderly people on the books who are now going to have to work out travel [to a new practice] and all those sorts of things. And for it not to be viable for doctors to stay in business, it’s just ludicrous,” she said.

The patient said Snug wasn’t the “wealthiest community” so the clinic closure would create “additional costs and worries” for residents.

“Most [other] practices [have] closed books, they’re impossible to get into,” she said.

The Snug Medical Centre was contacted for comment.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Tasmania chair Dr Toby Gardner said regional general practice clinics were closing “all around Australia” and the issue was not unique to Tasmania.

“We don’t have GPs to replace the retiring GPs at the moment in Tasmania,” he said.

Dr Gardner said the freeze on Medicare rebates instated under previous federal governments had blown private practice costs “out of the water” and made general practice “non-viable”.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners Tasmania chair and GP Dr Toby Gardner. Photo: Supplied/RACGP

State Health Minister Guy Barnett blamed the Albanese government for GP closures, saying the fate of Snug was an example of federal Labor “failing in their responsibility to adequately fund our primary care sector”.

Mark Butler, the federal Health Minister, said general practice had been left in a “parlous state” across Tasmania due to “decades of cuts and neglect to Medicare by the Liberal government” – but the situation was beginning to improve.

“In two years, our government has increased the rebate paid to GPs by more than the Liberals did over nine long years,” he said.

GP clinics at Derwent Park, Risdon Vale, and Bellerive have all closed this year. There have also been recent closures at Bridgewater, East Devonport, and St Marys.