The deal with the past three doctors who agreed to buy the practice, Holbrook Medical Services, fell apart before the deal was made.

“For each of these doctors I did everything I could to finalise the transaction including providing sponsorship for their families’ visas and giving personal guarantee for their loans,” Dr Lakshmanan said.

“To keep the practice running for the community cost me not only considerable financial loss but also mental anguish.

“The past two years have drained my health.”

Strict conditions were placed on Dr Lakshmanan in 2013 following a case referred to the Health Care Complaints Commission.

The restrictions included limiting the number of patients he could see in a week and stopping him from working at the hospital.

It is this longstanding relationship with the community that has driven him to continue searching for a new doctor.

“I hope they will work out (the new doctor) so my community will get this service,” he said.

A second practice, Hume Medical Centre, opened in 2014 with Dr Delakshe Sentherran practising as GP.

She is supervised by Dr Lukumar Pathumanabhan, who owns the practice, but expects to be qualified in coming months.

The Holbrook hospital isn’t currently serviced by a doctor 24 hours a day.

Dr Sentherran has Visiting Medical Officer (VMO) rights at the hospital on an on-call roster basis.

When there is no doctor available the nursing staff work differently using their advanced nursing to assess and treat patients within rural health guidelines.

They are able to contact a doctor through the critical care advisory service through Murrumbidgee Local Health Service from 7am to 7pm seven days a week or contact a doctor at the Albury Base Hospital.

The emergency service is available 24 hours for assessment even though there is no doctor available.