Medical clinics in the region are under immense pressure due to increasing patient demand and lack of available doctors, resulting in limited appointments and increased wait times.
The effect is being felt throughout the Limestone Coast with clinics reporting increased difficulty obtaining doctors, which has led to short staffing.
Millicent Medical Clinic practice manager Bronwyn Barker said the clinic currently has six doctors coping with the workload of 10.
“We recently lost two of our general practitioners because one moved back to family interstate and the other completed their training period with us,” she said.
“In 2012 we had 11 doctors and during that period provided training supervision for GP registrar doctors and medical students in the hope of encouraging future rural doctors.
“We have had to restructure our ‘on-call’ doctor appointments to be triaged by nursing for urgency, so that urgent care can be provided.
“General practitioners are in so much demand rurally across the nation.
“We will continue to take GP registrars for supervision, but even the number wanting to do their GP training is so far less than the demand.”
Hawkins Medical Clinic practice manager Judith Williams agreed, adding that finding doctors was much more difficult especially since the government changed the regulations around overseas trained doctors, and where they can practice in their first few years of their residency in Australia.
“Now that locations on the edge of our major cities are able to host these doctors it will be more difficult than ever to recruit a general practitioner workforce to truly support rural locations like Mount Gambier, and the greater Limestone Coast,” she said.
Millicent is experiencing lengthy appointment waiting times with Mrs Barker reporting appointments are booked out for up to eight weeks, while some GPs next available appointments are up to three months away.
“I think the increased media on the rural GP issue has informed the public that it’s not just our clinic with these issues – it’s so many rural clinics,” she said.
“Staff are struggling when prebooking appointments for patients because the appointments are so far in advance.A few of our GPs have given up their ‘day off’ to make more appointments available.”
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the winter flu season have only added to the pressure.
Ms Williams said the volume of patients with cold and flu-like symptoms meant their phone lines ‘run hot’ every morning with patients looking for appointments.
“The pandemic stretched on longer than anyone could have anticipated at the beginning, meaning we have now operated for more than two years in a constantly changing environment,” she said.
“Staff and doctors are asked to do more by patients and government bodies than ever before.
“I wish I could say that it has become our new normal, although that is true to a certain extent, there are difficulties that we face every day in trying to maintain our service.
“On average at the moment, we have one or two staff members, and one or two doctors unable to attend the clinic because of illness every week.
“This puts pressure on all of those who are able to come to work to do more with less time in order to make sure that patient health is looked after appropriately.”
