‘We feel like we’ve let the community down’

In 2018, Goyder’s Line Medical was staffed by 12 GPs and registrars, all working across three regional South Australian clinics and all crucial to their tight-knit communities.
 
Now, just seven years later, that number has dwindled to only four-and-a-half full-time equivalent GPs.
 
Due to this ‘ongoing and unavoidable workforce shortage’, one of those three clinics closed its doors on Friday leaving its GPs, and the community, devastated.
 
The centre says it can no longer safely provide medical services at its Peterborough clinic, which sits around 250 kilometres north of Adelaide.
 
Goyder’s Line Medical’s two other clinics, at Jamestown and Orroroo, will remain open.
 
‘This has been a very difficult decision,’ the centre said.
 
‘We recognise how important our clinic has been to the community, and we are deeply grateful for the support we have received from local residents, patients, and staff over the years.’
 
The clinic’s closure has led to widespread concern from the local community.
 
Dr Simon Jackson is a GP obstetrician, and one of the practices’ principal partners.
 
He said the difficulties in attracting GPs ‘just makes it unsustainable’ to cover three sites, as well as being on call 24/7 at the local hospitals.
 
‘We’re actually pretty upset that we’re unable to service the community,’ Dr Jackson told newsGP.
 
‘We’ve had a long relationship with the community, with the patients there, and we feel like we’ve let the community down by having to make this decision.
 
‘It’s also a very low socioeconomic town with high rates of unemployment and so the associated health needs are really significant.
 
‘There’s potentially going to be a lot of our regular patients with significant medical comorbidities and inability to travel facing times without having access to a GP.’
 
In 2021, the centre faced a similar fate as it confronted the prospect of having to shut up shop.
 
‘We managed to recruit one full-time GP and a couple of extra registrars, and then we were able to return working there, but really, we were working on a skeleton workforce,’ Dr Jackson said.

Dr Simon Jackson, a GP obstetrician, has been working at Goyder’s Line Medical since 2014. 
 
The closure is the latest in a long line of general practices shutting down in recent years, with GPs across Australia saying, ‘it’s been an ongoing struggle’ and ‘this is a cry for help’.
 
And it is not just GPs sounding the alarm, with Goyder’s Line Medical’s local council also ‘seeking help in resolving the issue’.
 
‘This is devastating news for our communities, the people from surrounding areas and the travelling public, all who have need of the services provided from time to time or on an ongoing basis,’ District Council of Peterborough Mayor Ruth Whittle said.
 
‘The logistics involved in travelling to other towns to access services is non-viable or non-negotiable in some cases and not what we expect as a result of living in a rural location.’
 
In a bid to bolster the GP workforce, the RACGP launched its National workforce strategy 2025–30 earlier this month.
 
The plan aims to address the GP shortfall, as well as the ‘clear pay disparity’ compared to other specialties, and the profession’s attractiveness.
 
It also states there is a current shortfall of 3010 full-time GPs in Australia, with this set to increase to 17,760 GPs in 2040 under an ‘unmet demand scenario’.
 
For Dr Jackson, ‘if there was an easy solution, it would be fixed by now’.
 
‘It’s a very, very tricky problem to try and solve, but I think this isn’t going to be solved in the next year or two, we need to be potentially looking at a solution in the next 10 years,’ he said.
 
‘There needs to be more exposure for medical students and junior doctors in regard to general practice and rural medicine.
 
‘There are already financial incentives provided for GPs to work in rural areas but maybe there needs to be some sort of program of encouragement for those GPs that are urban GPs that wish to occasionally experience the interesting medicine that we get to see in rural areas.
 
‘By undertaking a rotation, or replacement, or short-term placement in a rural area, that may temporarily improve some of the workforce issues and some of those GPs might enjoy the work there.’
 
But as the Peterborough clinic prepared to close on Friday afternoon, Dr Jackson said he hopes there is change soon, before too many more practices follow suit.
 
‘We’re not the only practice or town that’s facing this issue,’ he said.
 
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