The biggest challenge facing general practitioners in Wagga is not a shortage, but encouraging doctors to stay in regional areas for the long term.
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That’s the view of Wagga GP Tracey Purnell.
Wagga currently has 92 GPs attached to 19 different practices, as well as the Wagga After Hours GP Clinic in Morgan Street and the Cure Home Doctor Service.
In the May, it was revealed a state-of-the-art teaching facility will be built in Wagga to accommodate a new medical school.
The school, announced in the May budget, is an expansion of the former University of NSW Medicine’s Rural Clinical School in Wagga and will begin delivering the new “end-to-end” program from 2021.
The NSW Rural Doctors Network currently has ads from six Wagga practices that are looking for GPs.
Dr Purnell, who has lived in the city for four years, opened her own practice, Central Wellbeing, in Morrow Street in August 2017.
She currently has a development application before Wagga City Council to convert an old house on the corner of Trail and Kincaid streets as she plans an expansion of her practice.
Dr Purnell said while doctors were happy to come to regional and rural areas as part of their training, getting them to stay on was harder.
She said this was a much bigger issue for practices in Wagga than the shortage of GPs which affected other regional centres.
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The Daily Advertiser has heard from Wagga residents that they have faced waits of several days to get GP appointments.
A spokeswoman for the Murrumbidgee Primary Health Network said most practices had procedures in place to try to accommodate emergency appointments.
She said patients who were willing to see another doctor within a practice may also be able to secure an earlier appointment.
During winter GP clinics were generally busier, the spokeswoman said.
Wagga Base Hospital’s emergency department is bracing for an increase in patients over the next two months, with August generally its busiest month.
The Wagga Base Hospital emergency department (ED) saw 232 more patients in June 2018 compared to June 2017, with the figure up from 3298 last year to 3530 for 2018.
June’s 3530 is marginally less than May’s 3548.
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