Both Lightning Ridge and Walgett will lose crucial access to medical services, with two Rural and Remote Medical Services (RARMS) announcing the closure of their Walgett LGA branches this week, affecting over 7,000 people. 

RARMS CEO Mark Burdack attributed the closure to the escalating costs of primary health care and the historic underfunding of rural and remote health, making attracting and retaining doctors increasingly difficult. 

“It’s with deep sorrow that we are closing our doors on the 2nd of May,” Mr Burdack said.

“As a charity, our job is to help rural and remote communities to fill growing gaps in access to public health care services and keep permanent jobs local,” he said. 

The organisation will be holding a community forum next Monday to discuss the current rural health crisis, the flow-on impact of the loss of GP services, and strategies to address the decline of rural health and hospital care in the community.

“Unfortunately, in Lightning Ridge and Walgett, this was not sustainable or viable after the loss of Western NSW Local Health District VMO (visiting medical officers) contracts.”

While RARMS has missed out on the VMO contract, it has instead gone to OCHRE, another Walgett-based medical service.

Ultimately, whoever lost the contract would have been forced to close their doors. 

“It is well known that most rural and remote GPs cannot make a living without being paid to be on-call as a VMO to attend emergencies at the local hospital. A mix of Medicare and VMO funding has always been essential to ensure the sustainability of general practice in small rural and remote towns,” Mr Burdack said. 

The lack of permanency is not only becoming a threat to local health services, but a major expense to the local health district. 

According to documents released to the ABC through Freedom of Information requests, the Western NSW Local Health District (WNSWLHD) spent almost $16 million on locum doctors in the 2019-2020 financial year. 

Mr Burdack said that the LHD’s reliance on locums has created ‘the perfect storm’ when it comes to finding permanent GP’s, with medical service salaries unable to compete with locum salaries. 

“When we had the contract it was $1,200 a day to get the local GPs to be available to the hospital. Since they’ve gone to the fly in fly out model, they’re now paying upwards of $3,000 a day…so why would they take less to be permanently in a rural town?” Mr Burdack said. 

With the model unable to support both OCHRE and RARMS simultaneously, Mr Burdack said the two businesses formed an agreement, where RARMS would leave Walgett and Lightning Ridge to eliminate competition in town, with the condition that the Collarenebri-based GP working with RARMS could receive a VMO contract. 

The deal is still awaiting a sign-off from NSW Health MInistry. 

With the report from the senate inquiry into access to health services and rural and remote areas due in May, Mr Burdack believes that discoveries made in the inquiry could be the best chance to achieve the radical improvements needed for rural health services. 

“We remain hopeful that the NSW and Senate inquiries into rural health will finally listen to rural and remote people about how to fix rural health,” he said.

"Too often funding has gone to the cities to fix rural health, rather than to rural and remote communities, and the problems are now worse than ever.”

“For now, we would like to thank our amazing staff, the community, and our partners who helped us provide essential health care in these remote areas.”

“We hope to be back in the future and will continue to support and advocate for these remote communities however we can. It’s farewell, but we hope not goodbye.”

RARMS will continue to operate in Collarenebri and any patients wishing to remain with the RARMS charity can have their medical records transferred.

The community forum will be held at the Lightning Ridge District Bowling Club at 12pm on Monday 2nd May.