TUMUT’S Connection Medical Centre has been acknowledged by NSW Nationals’ upper house member for Monaro Nichole Overall as a “successful, visionary model that has tremendous potential to be replicated in other regional and rural communities.”
Ms Overall visited the medical centre last Monday 28 April while in Tumut to assist federal member for Riverina Michael McCormack at early voting.
While in town she met with Andrianna Benjamin, co-CEO of HealthKlinix Australia and former NSW Nationals’ candidate for Wagga, who took the time to show her the clinic.
“I had the pleasure of catching up with NSW Nationals senior vice chairman Tim Overall and member of parliament Nichole Overall MLC,” Ms Benjamin said.
“I was thrilled to showcase one of my key projects over the years, the Connection Medical Centre Tumut – Riverina’s largest privately owned medical centre – alongside my remarkable friend and the longest-serving GP in our region, Dr Thi Tran.”
Ms Overall said the facility, along with diversity of services, is proactively addressing the issue of “bringing health professionals to our regions and keeping them there by offering what they need, from state-of-the-art facilities to accommodation.”
Dr Thi Tran has been a GP in Tumut for 22 years, and said her bulk billing medical centre is a hub out of which a lot of specialists from Canberra and Wagga who come to help in Tumut work out of.
“I’d like to get as many specialists coming down to help the town as I can,” Dr Tran said.
“If 50 patients from here have to travel to Wagga to see a specialist, having one specialist here would save 50 people that trip.”
She said having local GPs and specialists is crucial for positive health outcomes, and more beneficial than telehealth services.
“People are using telehealth but it isn’t the same as a face-to-face consultation,” Dr Tran said.
“I can sit in my garden, and you can sit in yours and we can do a telehealth appointment, but face-to-face you get a better doctor-patient relationship, and I believe the diagnosis and treatment is better for it.”
Dr Tran said she has trained many GPs in her time, though she said none of them have stayed after training, instead moving back to their cities.
She said she has personally paid for the visas and sponsorship of two doctors to come and work at Connection.
“Through Rural Doctors Network (RDN) I get some support with those arrangements, but I still have to pay out of pocket to sponsor them,” Ms Tran said.
She said a lot of the success of Connection comes down to the support of the community.
“I’m very lucky to have had the support of the town,” she said.
“Andrianna helped me to build up the old pub to become a medical centre without a cent of payment. It was volunteers who worked for us to have a beautiful medical centre for the community.
“Everyone is helping, and if we keep going like this we have a beautiful future.”
Ultimately, Dr Tran said it comes down to governments needing to look at more support for rural doctors like those in Tumut.
“If we can keep everything running and well-staffed, everyone will have better health services. Everyone here, those in every industry in town who need those services will have better access. I think that would be a great deal for everyone.”
Ms Benjamin said she is advocating for more support for supervising GPs.
“Practice owners are required to recruit doctors from overseas at their expense, without financial assistance,” she said.
“It is essential that our government look into providing financial support to GPs and practice owners in rural and regional towns to ensure the sustainability of healthcare in these areas for the future.”
Nichole Overall said she enthusiastically congratulates Dr Tran, Andrianna and those involved for their ongoing achievement.
“I look forward to raising this in parliament, highlighting it as a demonstrated ‘how-to’ support our dedicated doctors, health professionals and local business owners to ensure a thriving future for healthcare in our regions,” she said.
“From a state government perspective, it must be about encouraging and actively supporting outside-the-box solutions like this to better provide for our communities.
“That means connecting and developing such partnerships with the private sector and healthcare providers, for great outcomes.”
