A rural town has banded up all community efforts to recruit a new GP for its local practice.
Attracting new GPs to a rural practice is no easy feat, but the Victorian town of Birregurra has pulled out all stops, offering free haircuts, gym classes and beer to a willing taker.
Located approximately two hours’ drive from Melbourne, there is currently just one GP in the town of 1000 people.
Dr Jared Kilday has been pushing to recruit another GP to Birregura Medical Centre, but said he has repeatedly come up against assumptions about rural general practice that blind potential recruits to the community benefits.
“We’re still searching, it’s not easy to attract people into rural general practice,” Dr Kilday told The Medical Republic.
“There’s a perception that it’s pretty hard work, so it is tricky to get people interested, especially if they haven’t heard of the place, or if it’s not super close by one of the bigger towns.
“This is a great place to live and work, and the community is really supportive, obviously, as you can see from the support that they’re offering.”
The community support in question has come from a variety of local businesses offering discounted or free services as an incentive to move to the town.
From a local brewery’s ‘care package’ to free coffee, gym classes and haircuts, Dr Kilday said the town’s enthusiasm and generosity shows how rural communities are rewarding work environments.
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“I think the government support and suit of incentives definitely does help, there’s been a bit of a peering back in that space over the last couple of years,” Dr Kilday told TMR.
“Incentives certainly do help because people have got to live and work and they want to be remunerated fairly.
“In the GP space generally, we’re seen as the solution to the overcrowding of emergency departments and all those sorts of things.
“But at the same time, the government have been paring back what we can claim and perhaps not, or certainly not, increasing the amounts as we would expect year on year, to go with inflation and those sorts of things.”
These reasons have been emphasised as a key threat to rural practices with continuity of care under threat also as a result.
“The value that a community places on being able to access healthcare within their own community, and not having to travel further afield, perhaps to a bigger centre to see a doctor that doesn’t know them to access their care,” Dr Kilday told TMR.
“I think that’s why the community is rallying behind me here, because they know if I can’t get some extra support, and this clinic then has to close down, that they’re going to have to travel further afield.”
