Paul James was shocked to find his doctor clinic had closed when he turned up to schedule a routine appointment.
"I couldn't believe it," the Sunshine Coast resident said.
"They've always been terrific — the doctors here are great and the staff are always really nice."
Mr James was a patient of Ann St Family Medicine, a clinic in the bustling Sunshine Coast town Nambour, for two years.
The clinic became casualty in the nation's general practitioner crisis when it closed suddenly on Monday.
The details were communicated to patients via a prerecorded phone message and a note on the website and building door.
The statement advises patients to transfer their medical records to a new GP.
The clinic declined the ABC's request for an interview.
Closure 'not surprising'
Sunshine Coast Local Medical Association president Roger Faint said he was "not surprised" to see the Ann St clinic was without a GP.
He said the region had more doctors compared to other areas, but only had a quarter of the required general practice registrars.
In order to get more, Dr Faint said registrars needed to be paid more, because many took pay cuts to move from city hospitals to regional areas.
"At some point you're not going to be able to attract a GP, because they will go where they can get the best income for the work they do," he said.
Dr Faint said many Queensland medical centres had stopped bulk-billing patients because the Medicare rebate was too low to cover increasing operating costs.
He feared healthcare would become unaffordable for many.
"They neglect their health, or they are going to go to Queensland Health emergency departments and they're going to sit and wait to be seen for their toothache or their sprained wrist or ankle or something along those lines," Dr Faint said.
"The emergency departments start to get flooded with what they call category five patients, who really just should be being seen in general practice."
Feeling the squeeze
Sunshine Coast GP Wayne Herdy worked at the Ann Street clinic about seven years ago.
He said various factors were impacting on general practices, including a lack of a wage increase in the past decade and reduced working hours despite higher demand for weekend consultations.
"When it costs more to pay your nursing staff and reception staff ... than what the doctor makes in the practice, it's uneconomical for a corporate practice to continue opening on weekends," Dr Herdy said.
He said a federal government requirement for patients on Schedule 8 medications, such as morphine and codeine, to obtain a second opinion was also adding pressure to already squeezed resources.
The job is a 'privilege'
Australian Medical Association Queensland president Maria Boulton said it was sad to see fewer junior doctors choosing a GP career path.
"I guess the nail on the coffin at the moment is that there's a lot less medical graduates wanting to go and specialise and become a GP than there used to be before," she said.
"So in 12-13 years, it's going to be really, really difficult if we don't manage to turn things around."
She said it was a sad scenario.
"Because general practice is such a wonderful career ... we treat people from pretty much cradle to grave," she said.
"In my case, I have four generations of the same family that I look after and it is such a privilege."
What's the solution?
Dr Boulton said more funding and increases to the Medicare rebate would ensure clinics could continue to operate.
"There's a lot of talk from the Commonwealth Government at the moment about the importance of general practice and I do hope that talks are actually turned into some action ... because, in the end, we just don't want vulnerable people to suffer," she said.
Meanwhile, Dr Herdy said a national solution included a pay increase and establishing more incentives to entice doctors to regional areas.
He said the closure of a general practice clinic exacerbated the stress on nearby practices, where he anticipated waiting lists "would run out to extraordinary levels".
"Some of the GPs around the countryside have been reporting to me that their next routine appointment is something like four or six weeks away, which for general practitioners is extraordinary," he said.
"The other thing that patients will be noticing is that more and more practices are saying, 'We are not accepting any new patients'."
That reality was daunting for MrJames as he set out to find himself a new doctor.
"Doctors don't know you, you're [going] in out of the blue, they have no idea of your history," he said.
"It's always better when the doctor knows you, and you have to go through the whole process again, it's a long drawn out thing I reckon."
