Dwellingup has GP services in town for the first time in “decades”, which one health advocate hopes will spur more doctors to work in the wider Peel region.
The Dwellingup Health Hub officially opened to patients on Monday in the town’s old Nursing Post, following $100,000 in renovations and upgrades to equipment.
The new hub is co-located in the Dwellingup Community Village, which provides social housing for older people in the community, and will service people in the village and the wider population.
Dwellingup Health Hub chairman Bill Healy said the hub would mean locals do not have to travel for medical services and there are plans to expand the hub to include allied health services.
“We want to use the health hub as a basis for trying to improve the general health of Dwellingup residents, as well as fixing people when they’re sick,” he said.
One doctor from family medical practice Pinjarra Doctors will be based at the health hub on Mondays and Fridays, with the service to eventually also expand to Wednesdays.
Pinjarra Doctors managing director Mala Pillay said currently three of the six doctors working at Pinjarra Doctors were booked out “five to six weeks in advance”.
She hopes expanding to Dwellingup will allow the doctors to see locals and those in the surrounding areas, and will make more appointments available in Pinjarra for people living in the town.
Ms Pillay also has ambitions for the health hub to be a training practice for overseas trained doctors to fully qualify, as they currently cannot train at the Pinjarra practice due to government zoning.
“If we are there (Dwellingup), the overseas trained doctors that we employ can finish their training program at a rural location, which is actually solving a problem without having to change policy,” she said.
“We have lobbied the Government to change the policy (to allow for the training in Pinjarra) … but this is the quickest and the easiest way to provide more trained doctors to the area by opening up this facility and churning through the trainees with the supervisor at the site, and then filling the gaps in services in Pinjarra and Mandurah.”
Ms Pillay said if the Dwellingup Health Hub was popular with patients, she envisaged the facility could open up for other GP practices to train doctors there, and they could then go on to work at other practices in the Peel region.
“I have put in different strategies to accommodate our patients, but it’s still not enough,” she said.
“We still need doctors, we still need appointments.
“And if you talk to the community in general, they will tell you they need to get into a doctor when they want to get into a doctor, and see their own doctor.”
Shire of Murray president David Bolt said he believed it had been “decades” since a doctor was based in Dwellingup and described the opening of the hub — which received a shire contribution of $4000 — as a “significant improvement” in creating access to health care in Murray.
“For the first time in decades, local residents will have access to a doctor without the need to travel long distances outside their local area,” he said.
“Research shows that there is a growing and concerning health gap in Murray, and with the population expected to rise at a rapid rate, this gap will only worsen if nothing is done to address the issue.”
A survey undertaken by the shire — the Murray Region Health and Social Needs Analysis — released in December showed people in Murray have more long-term health conditions, at 37 per cent of the population, compared to 30 per cent in the Greater Perth area.
The survey also revealed only 35.3 per cent of respondents said they could always get access to health care when they needed to and 74 per cent of respondents identified more available health care appointments as the option which would most help the community to better access health care services.
Mr Bolt said the Dwellingup Health Hub was part of the shire’s project to “identify the required strategies and infrastructure” needed for health care for future generations in the area.
“Part of this work is to support immediate outcomes, such as the Dwellingup Health Hub, while seeking a long-term community-based care model that will result in significantly more services in Murray,” he said.
“Specifically, we are exploring how a new health facility in Murray could provide a central location for health practitioners to offer a wide range of services.
“Part of this process is to explore a potential location and costs. We expect to have the answers to these questions by July, at which time we will be lobbying to government for funds.
“While the advocacy process can take some time, seeing outcomes such as the Dwellingup Health Hub come to fruition is a positive step in the right direction and very welcomed.”