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A Queensland town is set to lose its only permanent GP, as advocates warn the situation is at breaking point.
Marie Cherry was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 2019. Health advocates in Moura are no longer working with their local health service, with the rural town's only permanent GP leaving this week.
What's next? Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service says it is recruiting for medical officers and will keep working with the community. Marie Cherry is battling incurable breast cancer, and soon there might not be any doctor in town to treat her. The 82-year-old has been living in Moura, on Queensland's coal belt, for more than 50 years, and said moving away was not an option.
"I'm beating it at the moment … but you do live in fear that the time when you really need , there's not going to be one here," she said. )A single GP has been working at both the medical centre and the hospital, with support from occasional locum, or temporary, doctors. ABC Capricornia: Jacob GambleRod Martin was a locum for two weeks in Moura, and is also the president of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine.
Supplied: Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine"As the only doctor in town for 2,000 people … there's lots of health needs and particularly in a town like that where they hadn't had a regular doctor for quite a while, there were lots of things to try and catch up on," he said.
"Increasingly, rural towns like this need more than just the one doctor to help look after the town. "Supplied: Kyarah WilliamsFormer Moura resident Kyarah Williams took her nine-month-old baby to the hospital with diarrhoea and vomiting, and never saw a doctor. "I felt like there was no urgency in how he was assessed, there was … no sense of care at all, I was just told to go home and figure it out, pretty much.
"Moura health advocate Debbie Elliott said she had been urging Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service to bring in more temporary doctors to support the permanent GP for months, but it never happened. ABC Capricornia: Russel Talbot"The issue was, six months prior we were saying, 'This is going to happen, you need to help us, please give support'," she said. Ms Elliott has been advocating on health issues in Moura for 13 years.
Moura has funding allocated for two doctor positions. Ms Elliott has resigned as chair of the local community advisory group, while the group itself has stopped working with the health service.
"A lot of people are very angry because they know that we had a doctor, he wanted to stay," she said. In a statement, a Central Queensland Hospital and Health Service spokesperson said it was actively recruiting candidates to fill medical officer positions, and was committed to engaging with the Moura community. The town has allocated funding for two doctors, and the service says it will continue to find locum support as recruitment progresses for more permanent staff.
Thirty minutes down the road, in Theodore, a private medical clinic has had more success holding on to its workers. ABC Capricornia: Jacob GambleThe practice owners Elizabeth and Ben Clarkson, said training a steady stream of medical students was the key to keeping staff in the rural town.
"They can come out to these rural communities and see their expanded scope of practice, and they can see a potential career,"Elizabeth Clarkson says maintaining strong primary care also reduces hospital admissions. Dr Clarkson said the "vast majority" of work was done in the primary care clinic, reducing the number and severity of hospital admissions.
"We know that early intervention and identifying problems earlier rather than later are really important for patients," she said. "We don't want to see people when they're coming in really unwell because they haven't been able to maybe see a GP for several years. ""Keep referring to Moura as 'Mouradise',"Get our local newsletter, delivered free each Friday
Moura Doctor Theodore GP Theodore Doctor Clermont Doctor Shortage GP Shortage Best GP Care Models GP Care Model Is There A Doctor In Moura? Hospital Queensland Hospitals CQHHS Central Queensland Hospital And Health Service Dr Elizabeth Clarkson
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