Port Fairy's Shearwater Medical Clinic closes from lack of doctors

The Shearwater Medical Clinic opened in July 2021 as the latest step in Moyne Health Services' masterplan to expand services in the greater Port Fairy region and have a dedicated GP service running within the Port Fairy Hospital.

Husband and wife team Cameron and Linda McPherson staffed the clinic at the outset as the resident GP and nurse, with the aim of slowly bringing in more doctors as well as allied health staff.

Moyne Health board chair Brian Densem said at the time the clinic would take the health provider "to the next level" in its range of services to the community.

But the nationwide shortage of doctors, particularly acute in regional areas, made recruiting staff extremely difficult and caused Shearwater's expansion plans to fall short.

The McPhersons left a message on Shearwater's website and Facebook page, thanking the community for its support.

"We have been unable to achieve our objective, which was to recruit doctors, to assist us in providing medical support for the Urgent Care Centre. It has become increasingly difficult to maintain a small medical clinic," they said.

Moyne Health went to considerable expense to launch the clinic, renovating the front section of the old hospital building on Villiers Street with financial assistance from the state government. Chief executive officer Katharina Redford declined to say how much Moyne Health spent to launch the clinic, but said the state government grants weren't provided specifically to set it up.

The Standard asked Ms Redford what the closure meant for the community and for Moyne Health's masterplan to expand services.

"Moyne Health Services' Master Plan recognises the advantages of having health related services in the same general precinct... In relation to the business decision to close, you would need to contact Shearwater Medical Clinic directly," Ms Redford said.

South West Coast MP Roma Britnell, who cut the ribbon at the opening in 2021, described the closure as a "tragedy".

"We've been so lucky to have Cameron open up in Port Fairy and the clinic has clearly been very well regarded by the community," Ms Britnell said.

"I'm sure they've done everything in their power to keep the doors open, but you just can't have people working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it's not viable or reasonable."

Ms Britnell said it provided another example of how hard it was to bring medical practitioners to the regions and argued the state government needed to do more to help.

"There need to be effective incentives and support to bring medical workers to the regions," she said.

"This is a workforce planning issue. For a doctor to have made this move and investment is huge, so you would've thought the state would do everything it could to support that."

Moyne Health is state funded, while the GP system is federally funded. It is unclear whether the federal or state governments were asked to provide any extra assistance to Shearwater.

The clinic will close on September 13 and Cameron and Linda McPherson will move their practice to Warrnambool, starting at the King Street Medical Clinic on October 16.