When Liz Christie heard her regular GP was retiring from the profession, she was disappointed, but figured she would just switch to another doctor in the Battery Point clinic — then she got a message saying she would need to find a new practice.
"I was pretty shocked to begin with," she said.
"But also frustrated because there's such difficulty getting a GP in the first place in Tassie."
Ms Christie has tried two places so far based on the recommendations of friends — both were closed to new patients.
She is now waiting for a call back from a third.
As someone who travels to Sydney regularly for work, she said she had also used GP services there to "supplement the health system in Tassie".
"It's just like, is it worthwhile me continuing to live down here in Tasmania if this is the situation?" she said.
"I need to know that if I have a health issue, I can access health care, and when I got those messages, I was like, 'I don't know if I can'."
It has been five weeks since Ms Christie's doctor moved on, and in that time, Battery Point Medical said it had tried its "hardest" to accommodate her patients.
In a letter posted on the clinic's website — which has since been modified — the clinic said it had made the difficult decision not to continue to take appointments for patients who were under the doctor's care.
"Our first reaction was that we would try to cope," the letter reads.
"We now know that caring for an extra 3,000 patients with existing four doctors who were already full and had closed their books was impossible.
"It has caused stress to everyone — our patients, doctors and staff."
A two-year hunt
While the clinic may have no other choice, the loss of a single GP means another wave of people who are looking to find a doctor in a system that is already overloaded and struggling.
Lily* also attends the same clinic as Liz, but she sees a different doctor.
Her husband, who had seen the doctor a few times, got the text. While the clinic has since clarified the message only applies to those who had seen the doctor for most of their appointments, Lily and her husband have been trying to find a new doctor's surgery for the past two years.
"We moved to [Sorell] a bit over two years ago. It was probably around the time I got pregnant with my daughter, so 18 months ago that I really started trying to get into the local practice," she said.
"I was calling them every single month for most of my pregnancy trying to get in, with no success."
Sorell is about 27 kilometres away from Battery Point. On a good day, Lily said the drive to the clinic took about half an hour. On a bad day, it is roughly 45 minutes.
"I've definitely had a couple of situations where it's like, I need to be seen by a GP now, but I can't get to that clinic," she said.
"If there's an issue right now … we just don't have an option."
She said she was told there were other clinics that were closer, but she did not see the point in using one that was not in her suburb.
"I was at the point where I either wanted one in my suburb or I'll be travelling anyway so I'll travel to the same place," she said.
While Lily said the local clinics have been able to see her when it has been an emergency, she wants a regular GP that is close by.
"Not only can I not get into one if I have a GP who isn't providing for my needs, I have no option to go anywhere else," she said.
"It's not like I can choose or be picky about my healthcare. I have to just take whatever I can get into, which is also very limiting."
'It's really crunch time now'
The problem is Tasmania, and Australia, simply does not have enough GPs to meet the growing demand, and with fewer and fewer medical graduates choosing to specialise in the area, it is only going to get worse.
"There's a real crisis and it's been a long time coming," said Dr Tim Jackson, chair of the Tasmanian branch of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP).
"It's been sort of 30 years of underfunding through Medicare and it's really crunch time now and unfortunately we're seeing access problems with patients."
While he said clinics were making sure those who needed urgent care could always get appointments, it was those who needed routine appointments that were suffering.
"It's never been harder for patients to get appointments with their GP … for routine things, it might take three or four weeks to get into," he said.
"It's particularly problematic for people who haven't got a go-to GP, or in this situation, where someone's GP has retired because there just isn't slack in the system that other GPs can take up an extra patient load."
COVID takes its toll
There are currently about 60 full-time equivalent GP positions available in Tasmania.
A Deloitte report predicts that by 2032, Australia's GP shortfall will reach 11,392.
Meanwhile, Dr Jackson said only 13.8 per cent of medical graduates were choosing to specialise as general practitioners — in the 2000s he said it was around 50 per cent.
"There's a real looming problem that we need to fix, and we need to fix it now," he said.
"It's been over 30 years with the medical MBS not keeping up with the cost of providing good service, so that has resulted that the pipeline of medical graduates coming into general practice has declined."
He said lots of younger graduates were choosing hospital specialities because there was more support for long service leave, paternity leave and other benefits that were not available for general practice.
At the other end, the population of GPs is ageing and he said some are retiring early. He believes that is due to burnout from COVID-19.
The pandemic also meant Australia had lost its supply of overseas-trained doctors, which the workforce relies on.
"So, people get their initial qualification overseas and then come to Australia and become trained in our system," Dr Jackson said.
"But that takes time and a considerable expense, so the RACGP has been asking the federal government to look at that and expedite it and make it easier and cheaper for these doctors to come from overseas to help our workforce situation, all the while keeping the standards at appropriate level."
He said making things easier for overseas doctors to work in Australia was the best short-term fix, while long-term fixes included more support and entitlements for GPs such as an increase in the Medicare rebate and different funding models for general practice.
