A Western Australian beachside town is hoping a lucrative offer with a rent-free house and car perks will entice a new general practitioner to take up the essential job of taking care of the community.
Livingston Medical is advertising for a new GP role in Bremer Bay, between Albany and Esperance on the state’s south coast.
The successful candidate will be offered a $300,000 to $450,000 salary, almost double of what the average Australian GP earns annually on a $233,304 salary.
The new GP will then have the opportunity to opt to collect 70 per cent of their billings or take home a salary.
The offer also includes the five-bedroom house and a four-wheel-drive to assist the GP getting safely to all their patients.
“Live rent-free in a scenic location, experiencing the true essence of rural Australia,” the advertisement said.
“Work within a supportive environment alongside experienced professionals including practice managers, receptionists, nurses, and allied health staff.
“Enjoy autonomy in your practice while receiving ample support and resources to excel in your role.”
Applicants should be registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and have relevant experience or be willing to train and develop as a rural generalist.
Anyone wishing to apply for the role should also “have a strong commitment to delivering high-quality patient care and building lasting relationships within the community”.
It comes as the there continues to be a high demand for doctors in rural areas across the country.
To help alleviate the pressures of filling the roles, the Medical Board of Australia is working on fast tracking the process to get more international medical specialists into the country.
The new process to safely fast-track urgently needed internationally trained medical specialists into the Australian health system will aims to get more medical specialists face-to-face with patients in Australia, through a fast track that will sit alongside the existing specialist medical college assessment system.
Australia’s former Chief Medical Officer Professor Brendan Murphy AC, said the expedited specialist pathway being developed by the Board and AHPRA was “essential”.
“We do have health workforce shortages in Australia … but as always, the shortages in the medical workforce are not evenly distributed geographically or among medical specialists,” Prof Murphy said.
“Despite the return to pre-Covid migration levels, the shortages persist without clear evidence that the Australian training pipeline of doctors will resolve them anytime soon.
“This is an international marketplace where we must be competitive, and we must be attractive to those doctors and other healthcare professionals who might want to come here.
“For those doctors who are currently in the process of migrating, we should be doing everything possible to get them into clinical practice as soon as it is safe. We should do what we can to make migration to Australia attractive for those doctors who we really need to fill critical shortages in critical locations and specialties including, if necessary, subsidising some of the costs.”