My wife and I ran our own small GP Clinic in Canberra from 2006-20018.
It was a small clinic that we built up with love and very long hours and with a full contingent of 4 or 5 fulltime doctors we could have made a difference to our lives and those of our patients.
Sadly this was not to be – the struggle to get doctors to work at a small clinic with no allied health support proved to be simply too much.
Our Clinic was well designed and we maintained a very high standard
The writing was on the wall by the end of 2017 – it was clear that we faced burn-out if we continued to work at the pace that we were and it was a Godsend when we received a letter in the mail advising us that the Ochre group had plans to open a new Health hub in Kippax.
We entered into discussion with Ochre about the matter and after months of negotiation we were happy that they were a Corporate Entity that shared our personal views in regards to patient care. Clearly there were matters that would be managed differently to what we used to do in our small Clinic but the overall level of care being provided, with the additional GPs, Nurses, Physiotherapists, Podiatrist, Pathology, Imaging, Dentist etc., would improve.
On a personal level the ability to no longer have the need to spend countless hours on running a business was a deal breaker for me.
A stressful and challenging few months followed but on the 10th of December 2018 we finally opened the new Clinic’s doors in Kippax.
Like any such large venture teething problems remain – phones take a bit longer to be answered, the online bookings are still a work in progress and there are new faces for our patients to get used to. Many of these friendly faces belong to the new service providers – the Nurses and Allied health workers that will assist the doctors that used to work at the Tillyard Drive Medical Practice in providing a better and more comprehensive health service.
At the core of the clinic we still have a dedicated GP team – the clinic has the capacity to have up to fifteen GPs so we are very actively trying to recruit more doctors – if you are a GP looking for a position in a team that already has well established senior clinicians feel free to contact me.
Over the next few months we hope to expand the Clinic’s services even more and aim for it to truly become the Hub for all Primary Health care services in this area of Northwest Belconnen.
And if you know of anyone who wants to buy an empty 200 sqm building – please contact me
Thanks for all you have done for all of us being part of the team – all your tireless work in the background, so we could come to work knowing everything is ready to go, all the shared information so we could all be up to date and in the center of it all the good patient care. It was a refuge for a lot of patients – especially the elderly that needed you to speak up for them.
Well done Thinus.
Thanks Boss – you have certainly worked very very hard at it yourself