On a cold Thursday night in the heart of Canberra's club and pub land, a steady stream of the unfortunates who fall through the gaps in the Canberra health system turn up to try to keep - or regain - health. They pass past the gaggles of students and party-goers to reach the Street Side Clinic on Genge Street.
It's a surgery in a van, run by big-hearted volunteers who give up their evenings to treat Canberra's homeless and poor.
"Those people find it very difficult to access medical care, particularly in Canberra," one of the GPs on duty, Helen Fry, said.
There was, she believed, a particular need in Canberra because the city's poor were shut out of the healthcare system more than those in other cities. The high proportion of clinics in the ACT which don't bulk-bill meant less space in the doctors' rooms for those who couldn't pay anything.
The street clinic in a van offers most of the services any GP surgery would - diagnosis, treatment for wounds and strains, medicines, referrals to specialists. But Dr Fry said it also offered patients time and talk, valuable assets which more money-oriented clinics couldn't or wouldn't.
"In practices where they're trying to make money from bulk-billing, you have to see so many patients to make it work. Whereas because we're a not-for-profit, we can take our time with those patients and give them that little bit of extra space to chat - which I think has proven so far to be really valuable," she said.
On the street outside the clinic in a van, there is gratitude.
"It saves people's lives, like, when no one has money," one of the patients, Charmaine, said as she came out after a check-up.
She described herself as homeless and in a long fight to keep her children from being removed from her by the authorities. For her in her penury, the clinic was invaluable.
"You have nowhere to turn. Nobody wants to serve you. When you come here, they give you a free service. You don't need to put money in front just to get a service. These people come and put love in front."
The clinic puts love and medical expertise together: "We can see all varieties of medical conditions. We can provide medications, we can do assessments. We can perform blood tests, and we can do some minor procedures as well," Dr Fry said.
On a table in the open air, Larry is having a bad wound on the palm of his right hand swabbed and cleaned. He said he had "a long drug and alcohol history. I've got bipolar, like I've got a mental health problem, and, yeah, I keep bad company. I take drugs".
So for him a basic surgery with GPs for free is a life-saver. "They're fantastic. They care. They're clearly enthusiastic about their jobs, and helping people who need it."
For Vidomir Kesina at 77, the surgery is a place to keep tabs on his health and also meet others in the same boat.
"You meet a lot of people in the same situations, and you can socialise," he said.
The van gets parked each Thursday outside the Vinnies food bank on Genge Street. The homeless congregate there for the food and the companionship, so the surgery is well placed.
"We've got seven doctors who are on our roster, which means that they only have to commit two hours every six weeks or so," Mark Ginswick, who organises the ACT service, said.
"We've then got a further 25-plus volunteers including a medical support officer (a student doctor, for example). And then we've got nurses, and we have general volunteers to be here just to lend a hand where they can."
The GPs have a variety of other jobs. Dr Fry, for example, is also a ship's doctor, spending periods at sea. On land, she also works in the emergency department at North Canberra Hospital.
Over the last six years, the national Street Side Medics scheme has expanded from its first operation in Sydney. It was founded by Daniel Nour who, as a 24-year-old medical student, was moved by the plight of the homeless in the city.
Choosing sites for the mobile clinics depends on the changing demographics, Dr Nour said.
"We rely on census data to give us a gauge of where to go. The sorts of people that are living there, the different communities that live there, the cultures behind them," he said.
