Chief executive officer Sandra Strong told the Namoi Valley Independent the board was waiting for the “final instructions” to be signed-off. 

“The licensing agreement has been to both Hunter New England District solicitors and the Commonwealth Government and to our solicitors in Brisbane and the proposed commencement date of us being able to access rural health is the 23rd of October and we're just waiting for the final instruction regarding this lease agreement,” she said.

“It will mean that that initially when we can access the building there's some general maintenance work we will do because the building has been closed,” she said. 

“We’ll need to do some mowing and tidy-up and we'll then have to redistribute equipment within and set-up various consulting rooms and relocate the management and support staff.

“We anticipate that the chief medical officer will be on-site by the end of the month.”

Mrs Strong said  the recruitment of medical officers and the support staff was ongoing.

“While we were concerned that we mightn't have been able to have medical officers before the Christmas period, if we can actually access and have things set-up by the beginning of November, I'm more hopeful that our recruitment for medical officers will be more productive,” she said.

“We've actually had expressions of interest from eight people, so I'm hopeful we'll have someone who's prepared to move in the December period.

“We've also had inquiries from Allied Health professional who are interested in providing services through what will be Mackellar Rural Health.”

Mackellar Care Services will hold an “operational planning day” on Saturday.

GRHC closed its doors on July 11.