General News
6 June, 2023
Practice making perfect - Patients rewarded
Horsham's largest medical clinic will soon have a full complement of doctors for the first time in more than 10 years. Lister House Medical Clinic will have 15 doctors on its books when three more join the team over the next few months. Lister House...
Horsham's largest medical clinic will soon have a full complement of doctors for the first time in more than 10 years.
Lister House Medical Clinic will have 15 doctors on its books when three more join the team over the next few months.
Lister House CEO Amanda Wilson said the clinic had every room being used for the first time in many years, not just with doctors, but also visiting specialists, a nurse practitoner, a diabetes educator and a counsellor.
"To be honest, we have got a lot of doctors wanting to come and work here," Ms Wilson said.
"There are a lot of people from overseas who are desperately looking to move, so we have lots of people in the pipelines who would love to come.
"We could actually take a lot more doctors if we had more supervisors."
Mrs Wilson said while the hiring of three new doctors would help ease the pressure, the clinic would still not meet rising demand.
"For us, it won’t ease the pressure that much. It will still make a bit of a dent but not enough,” she said.
"It is typically one doctor to every 1500 patients, but in Horsham the ratio has always been a lot higher than that."
As well as boasting a full roster of doctors, Lister House is also continuing to support the community with the continuation of the Horsham Respiratory Clinic - now the "walk in and wait" clinic.
Federal government funding for the clinic ended earlier this year, but Lister House decided to self-fund and continue to keep the clinic open as a low-level care clinic, that will help ease the pressure on the emergency department.
“We have decided to keep it open for our community because we realised the need was still there,” Mrs Wilson said.
"Rather than doctors' clinics turning patients away who are just stuck with respiratory symptoms, and just sending them to the ED, we thought we could actually still do what we were doing and continue how we were doing it."
The clinic, which is open from Monday to Friday from 9am until 12 noon, is not just for those with respiratory symptoms, but also for those experiencing minor symptoms such as sore throats, stomach pains, or even a sore toe.
"It's not for anything bigger than that," Mrs Wilson said. "It has been incredibly good. We see anywhere from 30 to 50 people every morning."