The announcement to reopen the Gunnedah Rural Health Centre and the relevant changes to its workings has been met with varying opinions: some locals are "ecstatic", others aren't so sure.
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PRAMS member Rebecca Ryan and the Gunnedah health committee's John Harford are excited by what the change will mean for the town.
Ms Ryan said moving Gunnedah Health Services' community health and ambulatory care services into the Marquis Street building would "streamline things".
"It's really positive for the community for this facility to remain in community hands and be linked to health services and our hospital," she said.
"It's exciting for some of the community health elements to move over."
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Mr Harford agreed with this, and said the change was "good for the community [and] good for the region."
"It's exciting times; you've got the backing of the state government, so it's totally more stable," he told ACM.
Brian Jeffrey lives in Gunnedah but currently attends Barton Lane Practice in Tamworth.
He is pleased the clinic will be used again, but said attracting doctors to town "isn't going to be an easy fix".
"You can't get a GP over night, it takes about eight or 10 years to train and then qualify to become a GP," Mr Jeffrey said.
"I'm delighted that at least the rural health centre is going to be used but I still have that reservation that the centre is going to be severely restricted unless they can supply GPs."
Hunter New England Health's (HNEH) executive director, rural and regional health services, Susan Heyman said at the announcement that HNEH had strategies in place to attract doctors to Gunnedah.
She said incentives that would bring doctors to town included "working closely with allied health service; having access to the hospital; being part of a larger community and having support, for example, schools and social networks, within the town".
But Mr Jeffrey said this wasn't enough.
"I don't think there's much imagination into how to lure doctors to the bush," he told ACM.
"Although they've got incentives in place for recruiting doctors, it's not working."
More locals took to Facebook to voice their opinions, with some saying the announcement was "good news", but others saying they were worried it might not work out again.
"Alright so who is taking bets, I'm going three for one it [closes] within a year of starting," Michael Wise wrote.
Allyson Moses wrote that she hoped everything would pan out.
"God knows we need the doctors here," she said.
HNEH's aim is to have the community health services move into the building by December, but it's not known yet when GPs will come into the picture.
The clinic's past has been fraught with dramas, closing numerous times due to a lack of doctors.
It closed in October 2019 after Mackellar Care Services struggled to keep doctors and locums, leaving many residents in the lurch.
Prior to that, it closed in 2017 for the same reason.