Over the past year, getting a doctor's appointment has been a "horrifying" journey for residents in the Northern Territory town of Katherine.
The town's only doctor's surgery for non-Indigenous patients closed in October 2020, after struggles long before the pandemic.
Melanie Usher and other local business owners feared the town could not survive without a clinic, so they banded together to open a new one.
"Three hours away was the nearest doctor which was in Darwin and our emergency department and our hospital was being overrun," Ms Usher, who manages the Katherine Family Medical Practice, said.
"We thought we'd give it a go and here we are."
In a separate effort, another clinic, Bauhinia Health, opened earlier this year.
But like many locations across Australia, the two clinics have faced extreme challenges in recruiting GPs.
Across the two practices there are three full-time GPs: a figure much lower than hoped for a town of more than 10,000 people.
Katherine Family Medical Practice has even turned to amateur videos to persuade doctors to head north.
"So for us, it's about trying to sell Katherine and the community and what a wonderful place it is."
New model to attract GPs
The two clinics hope a different employment plan could help Katherine stand out to doctors and possibly convince them to stay.
NT Primary Health Network chief executive Gill Yearsley said under the draft plan, GPs would have a single employer and they would rotate between the town's hospital and local GP practices.
"This will allow GPs to experience the benefits of both types of practice and is intended to attract more GPs to the region and provide workforce support to the GP practices," she said.
A boosted GP workforce would also benefit Aboriginal health organisations in the region, according to Bauhinia Health owner and practice manager Anjali Palmer.
She said the experience the model offers would be a drawcard particularly for young doctors.
"It's an opportunity you don't get anywhere else and it's really imperative that we get that model happening sooner rather than later," she said.
NT Health said it was collecting feedback from stakeholders on the model, with an aim to implement it in the first half of next year.
Hal Rikard-Bell, past president of the Rural Doctors Association of NSW who spent time in the town as a locum, said Katherine was no different to other towns in its recruitment struggles, with multiple factors at play.
But he believed this plan could ease the shortage.
"I think it's really got a good chance of working and if I was setting up a general practice system, I would always have the GPs in the town doing sessions in ED," he said.
