While Doctor Mike Hodges had his first day on Monday under Mackellar Care, he is no stranger to Gunnedah.

The GP practised at the centre in 2017 when it was still the Gunnedah Rural Health Centre, and returned when he was contacted by friend Dr Martin Jodlowski-Tan who is the chief of medicine for MCRHC.

Dr Hodges is semi-retired and lives in Coffs Harbour. He has practised in Australia for 15 years and was living in Zimbabwe before this.

The GP will be working in Gunnedah full-time for three months to help the centre get up and running.

“As a GP, I’ve had lots of country practice and experience,” he said.

“I just want to try and put back into rural medicine.”

Dr Hodges is also hoping to help Dr Jodlowski-Tan recruit new doctors.

“I’ve got experience in teaching and the idea is to get younger doctors and registrars to come and live in the beautiful town of Gunnedah,” Dr Hodges said.

“The facilities are really conducive to training doctors and help them to learn in a new environment that’s state of the art.

“I think the commitment is to put back into the community what they have put in [to the centre].”

Dr Jodlowski-Tan said the centre was “fortunate” that Dr Hodges had agreed to come on board.

“It was very clear he was much liked by staff and patients alike [in 2017],” Dr Jodlowski-Tan said.

“Mike is in his own right an extremely good doctor and a very good doctor’s teacher.

“The big picture is if you have more doctors in town, you will attract not only just allied health but also specialists. We certainly have the capacity to accommodate specialists here.”

Mackellar Care chief executive officer, Sandra Strong, is pleased to have Dr Hodges join the team.

“Now that we’ve got both Dr Martin and Dr Hodges working on this together, this actually gives them time to be taking that caseload as well as reviewing recruitment,” she said.

“I think the next step forward – now that Dr Hodges is here – will see the appropriate skill levels to support the philosophy of what this whole centre is about.

“We want to make sure this practice grows… on a sound footing.

“It’s not just about having a stop-gap for now, it’s about having a sound business as we move forward.”

Dr Jodlowski-Tan said local doctors were supportive of the centre’s anticipated growth because of the heavy patient load and the lack of doctors on the emergency roster at Gunnedah District Hospital.

“It needs to be viable. We need to grow slowly and steadily,” he said.

“We want people who will commit to this workplace.”

Mackellar Care Services purchased Gunnedah Rural Health Centre in November 2017 and rebranded it Mackellar Rural Health Centre. Gunnedah Rural Health Centre closed on July 12.

The health centre is situated on land owned by Hunter New England Health and the building was constructed with funds from the Federal Government through the GP Super Clinic program, donations from local mines and fundraising from the community. 

By the end of 2017, Mrs Strong said Mackellar Care had spent $498,000 to make the centre operational, including the purchase of the business ($180,000 excluding  building), legal fees, consulting fees, building maintenance, project management fees, replacement  stationary, cleaning, archiving records and equipment replacement.

“We thank the members of community who have contacted us with such encouraging comments of support wishing us well as we move forward to establish MRHC as a Super  Clinic for Gunnedah,” Mrs Strong said.

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