Gunnedah health clinic GP search back to beginning with all proposals denied by HNEH

Hunter New England Health (HNEH) executive director for rural and regional health services, Susan Heyman, has told the Leader all three proposals to run the clinic have been knocked back.

"Unfortunately, the three proposals we received would not deliver additional GP services, beyond what is currently provided in Gunnedah," Ms Heyman said.

"For this reason, the applicants have been advised that their proposals were not successful."

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These applications were handed in as part of HNEH's expression of interest (EOI) process, which has been under way since November 2020.

The search is now back on for a service to deliver GPs to the Marquis Street clinic, which shut down in October 2019 because there were no doctors to run it.

"Hunter New England Health remains committed to delivering additional GP services to the Gunnedah community and will keep in close contact with the applicants and our key stakeholders to continue to look at other strategies to bring more doctors to the town," Ms Heyman told the Leader.

"The major goal of the EOI was to attract additional GPs to Gunnedah to provide people with more access to stable consistent primary healthcare services. This is a significant issue for the community and for Hunter New England Health, and certainly a challenge across many of our rural and regional towns."

Ms Heyman said she'd like to thank the community for its patience during the EOI process.

"Healthcare is a whole of system responsibility and we will continue to work with the federally-funded organisations, including the Rural Doctors Network and Primary Health Network, which have the programs and services in place to attract, guide and support GPs working in rural and regional communities," she said.

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