After suffering a devastating blow from the closure of its only medical clinic last year, respite is around the corner for Avoca — on Liebig Street, where a new practice is replacing the old.

Bringing GP services back to the town, Talbot’s Dr Jim Sharples has joined hands with the Central Highland Health Network (CHHN) run by Dr Michael Veal, to open CHHN Avoca in the same facility as the Tristar Clinic which has been closed since May 2022.

The clinic, being rented to the pair by the Maryborough District Health Service (MDHS), will likely begin taking on patients from Monday, September 4, starting off with telehealth, then progressing to in-person consultations.

As the practice sets up operations, Dr Sharples will continue to work as a full-time GP and Dr Veal will attend in a part-time capacity — but with a total of six consulting rooms, the owners hope to attract more doctors into the future.

Apart from bringing more GPs into the mix, CHHN Avoca will also feature some big changes including a move away from bulk billing for most patients except pensioners, Health Care Card holders and those under 16.

According to Dr Sharples, who previously managed the Dr Jim Sharples’ Clinic in Talbot until it closed its doors earlier this year, bulk-billing patients is no longer a viable option.

“When I was over in Talbot, I wanted the opportunity to expand and add more doctors because in general practice, particularly if you’re a bulk-billing GP, it’s not financially sustainable in the long-term and the best way to manage that is to share the cost with multiple providers,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I couldn’t expand at that location and had to make the pretty hard decision to close.

“I temporarily operated as a telehealth practitioner but it was always a short-term measure, I wanted to find something more suitable and then CHHN Avoca happened — and for the patients here, we will try to keep the fees as low as we can but a lot of people are also coming to the realisation that in order to have these services running, there will be a fee involved.”

Expecting to see about 60 patients a day, Dr Sharples said he was excited to transform the building into a top-notch medical facility for the people of Avoca.

“This space is amazing. There are so many opportunities to take advantage of and I didn’t realise how big it was,” he said.

“It’s fantastic and we’ve got the opportunity to turn it into something pretty special. I think that’s certainly going to be helping the local townfolk here who had that opportunity taken away from them a year ago.

“I would imagine the community is pretty excited. We’ve been getting a lot of phone calls and requests for being on the books. We haven’t set everything up yet but I think we’re going to be a little overwhelmed once we finally do.”

Future-proofing the practice, so it doesn’t meet the fate of its predecessor, is also a priority — ensuring uninterrupted healthcare access for locals.

“It’s extremely important for a community to have a clinic that’s accessible to them,” Dr Sharples said.

“Having a doctor nearby, who can be the first point of contact is probably the most important [which is why] we want to make this practice viable and the best way to do that is by bringing in younger talent.

“We need to bring in younger folk who are willing to work in remote and rural areas, which is hard to find, but if we can attract those people and show them the benefits of living out in the country, the kind of lifestyle you can have out here, and also the additional kind of specialty training they can gain, that’ll be great. They can then take over the practice and continue to offer that service when we retire.”

Alongside recruiting younger doctors, running a sustainable clinic also involves making harder decisions like introducing changes to bulk-billing, CHHN Avoca’s co-owner, Dr Veal said.

“Medicare is tragically underfunded, the cost of living is going up and that’s not being matched with funding to public services such as community health.

“Bulk-billing is not sustainable so what we plan to do is charge those people who cannot access the bulk billing incentive, the equivalent of that incentive and we hope that will mean we can run a sustainable practice. We would love to have bulk billing for everybody, but it’s just not feasible.”

Dr Veal said that securing the health service’s future is a process consisting of consultations with multiple stakeholders.

“A new clinic is massive for Avoca and the community. Without these services, small country towns are dying,” he said.

“Having an ongoing medical service is one of the absolute key foundations in keeping the town viable.

“We’ve had a meeting with [relevant parties including MDHS, and the Pyrenees Shire Council] to see how we can make CHHN Avoca sustainable because it has been opened and operated by other people and it was proven not to be sustainable — so we’re hoping to work together on a shared vision for this practice and it’s future.”


Excitement grows for new clinic, and some concerns

For a community that was stripped of healthcare services last year, a new practice is welcomed — but some locals are concerned the future could mirror the past.

Avoca’s original practice, the Tristar clinic, was established thanks to the efforts of locals who rallied to raise about $40,000 allowing the Tristar Medical Group to set up.

Following a slow decline in appointment availability, in May 2022 the clinic’s time in the town came to an end after its parent company, Khaled El-Sheikh, entered voluntary administration.

Now more than a year on, Pyrenees Shire mayor and Avoca Ward councillor Ron Eason said the community had been waiting for a new clinic to come to town.

“It’s very important to have medical services within your town or in your community. We’ve been fighting for this for quite some time since Tristar collapsed,” he said.

“It feels wonderful that Central Highland Health Network (CHHN) Avoca is coming up now. We, as a community, we got together and we brought Tristar in and then when that collapsed, we started again, trying to work out how we could do it a second time.

“We’re a small town and to have something start again, is great. It’s to the benefit of not only the Avoca community but surrounding smaller communities as well.”

Tristar’s reduction of services and eventual closure left residents like Ray Beissart disappointed and frustrated.
“It was disgusting, because even before it closed the clinic went from four doctors to just one, then one doctor two days a week to just one doctor once a week,” he said.

“I was quite happy to go to the Tristar clinic but then it just fell in a heap and we were left with no doctors.

“I transferred to Maryborough because when they closed I lost all my information and so I just decided to find a doctor elsewhere.”
Mr Beissart was happy a new practice was opening up, however he said he would continue to go to his current GP, roughly 30 kilometers away.

“It’s good there’s one here now especially for the people who can’t drive and there’s a lot of older people as well,” he said.
“While it’s wonderful and it’ll be nice to see, I just can’t be mucked around anymore.

“What if this new one closes as well — what would we do, we’d have to start all over again.”

This skepticism is not unfounded, given everything the town has faced, according to Avoca Gold Chemist pharmacist James Murphy.

“It’s been a diabolically bad thing that Tristar shut down and that really affected everyone’s confidence,” he said.

“People had to flood into other clinics and not everyone could get in. Some people are going to Ballarat as well and that’s not ideal at all.

“Having a local clinic is just so vital and also really critical because in some cases you need to see a doctor right away.”

Overall, Mr Murphy said, CHHN Avoca would prove to be very beneficial for the town.

“It will be fantastic. It’s a wonderful thing to have accessible health care,” he said.

“There’ll be a positive impact on our business as well because we stopped getting as many scripts as we used to after Tristar closed.

“In terms of the community’s health too, it’ll be great.”