Rural health crisis deepens as Queensland town loses its only GP

A rural Queensland town is facing a health crisis after its only GP announced plans to leave, leaving residents scrambling for medical care. The town's health advocate has expressed concerns about the lack of support from the local health service.

Residents in fear as doctor departs

Marie Cherry, an 82-year-old resident of Moura, is battling incurable breast cancer and is worried about accessing medical care if her condition worsens. "I'm beating it at the moment … but you do live in fear that the time when you really need [a doctor], there's not going to be one here," she said.

Moura, a mining town with an aging population, has long struggled to keep its medical workforce. The single GP has been working at both the medical centre and the hospital, with support from occasional locum doctors. However, the GP has now decided to leave, leaving the town without a permanent doctor.

Workload 'significant' for rural doctors

Rod Martin, a locum doctor who worked in Moura for two weeks, said the workload was significant. "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."

Health advocate's warning

Debbie Elliott, a health advocate in Moura, said she had been urging the local health service to bring in more temporary doctors to support the permanent GP for months, but it never happened. "The issue was, six months prior we were saying, 'This is going to happen, you need to help us, please give support'", she said. "And there was just no response to that."

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. "Now we're not going to have a doctor."

Recruitment efforts underway

In a statement, a spokesperson for the local health service 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.

Finding a solution

Meanwhile, a private medical clinic in nearby Theodore has had success holding on to its workers by training a steady stream of medical students. "They can come out to these rural communities and see their expanded scope of practice, and they can see a potential career," said Ben Clarkson, the clinic's owner. Dr Clarkson said the "vast majority" of work was done in the primary care clinic, reducing the number and severity of hospital admissions.