Tasmanian GP clinic bucks the trend attracting GPs and planning expansion
Despite a shortage of GPs and closure of some practices, a Tasmanian medical centre is expanding to make room for more GPs. Find out why they are bucking the trend.
Tasmania
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A New Norfolk doctors’ surgery is bucking the trend attracting so many GPs it is planning to build a new medical centre to accommodate them and see more patients.
Derwent Valley Medical Centre director, Dr Lester Pepingco, said in the past five years, five GP clinics from Ouse to New Norfolk and Brighton had closed while his practice had expanded.
“Over the same time period our clinic has grown from three to 12 doctors and this has enabled us to increase patient appointments by more than 18,000 per year,” he said.
“In my judgement, medical practices across the state are becoming more corporatised.
“Older practitioners are retiring and selling out to large medical companies and smaller communities are unattractive to those bigger concerns.
“Our stakeholders are the doctors, staff and the community – not a board of directors or shareholders.
“As a result we have been able to develop a desirable place to work as evidenced by us swimming against the tide of practice closure and in fact expanding to a point where I have more doctors requesting to join my clinic than I have space for.”
Prior to taking over, Dr Pepingco said his practice relied on overseas trained doctors and locums.
“It was like a turnstile. The average length of stay for doctors was six months,” he said.
“When I took over I had this ambition to attract and retain local GPs, you know, ones that are trained in Tassie, that knew the community.
“It was really quite scary, actually, when I first took over because nobody knew me from a bar of soap, I didn’t have any track record and there was all this doom and gloom about doctor shortages.”
Dr Pepingco relocated from Sydney and said it had been initially hard to attract GPs to the clinic which now provides special women’s and skin cancer clinics.
“We have three and a half times the rate of chronic disease compared to the national average, so our doctors are practising more complicated medicine,” he said.
Dr Larry Owen said some patients travelled up to 90 minutes to the centre from Bradys Lake, Maydena and Ouse.
“The number of patients that are required to travel such distances has increased greatly since the closure of the GP clinic in Ouse over two years ago,” he said.
“Although most patients are grateful just to be able to see a GP in New Norfolk, the travel is significant for them, as they often require frequent appointments due to high rates of chronic disease that our community experiences.
“However, the clinic is close to capacity in terms of space for more GPs and its books are not currently open to new patients.
“As such we felt that there was a real need for another clinic further up the Derwent Valley.”
Dr Owen said the clinic considered taking over the existing site at Ouse but believed a better option was 45 minutes from Hobart where many GPs lived and being closer to rural patients.
A site at Bushy Park is being considered and Dr Owen said it was hoped a government grant would be available.
He was grateful that Derwent Valley mayor Michelle Dracoulis had been receptive to a new clinic “giving us confidence to progress with our plans”.
Ms Dracoulis said a new clinic “would be brilliant”.
“The centre has an exceptional team and other doctors want to come and learn from that team,” she said.
Applications opened on Friday for funding of up to $250,000 per year to support the viability of eligible GP practices in regional, rural and outer-urban parts of Tasmania.
Health Minister Guy Barnett said GPs were important pillars of rural and regional communities.
“GPs and their practices are part of the very fabric of communities right across the State, and we are doing what we can to support them and ensure their ongoing viability,” Mr Barnett said.
Mayor’s fears about major medical emergency
Derwent Valley mayor Michelle Dracoulis has publicly thanked “incredible” ambulance and hospital emergency department staff who cared for her but questioned their preparedness to cope with a major emergency.
Ms Dracoulis was taken by ambulance to the emergency department at the Royal Hobart Hospital on Tuesday morning with a suspected pulmonary embolism.
“We talk a lot about wait times and ramping, but the quality of people that deliver our services is rarely mentioned,” she wrote on social media.
“I couldn’t be happier with the care I’ve been given, or the professionalism of those who gave it.
“Please spare a thought for them now, working 24/7 to save our lives, patch us up and keep us comfortable.”
Ms Dracoulis, who was diagnosed with a kidney stone, said the ED workload was “too high”.
“Limp, red-cheeked toddlers cry in worried parents arms; dignified, uncomfortable older people wait with the patience of those who are used to being told to wait; those in need of intravenous fluids are being given them in makeshift beds made of chairs, right here in the waiting room,” she wrote.
“One little girl behind me is struggling to breathe.
“How would we go during a major incident if this is just an average Tuesday?”
Ms Dracoulis said in the 1960s the New Norfolk District Hospital had an emergency department and maternity wing.
“We need access to emergency services in the Valley,” she said.
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