Access to health care expands
• Colin and Helen Denney, owners of Lilydale Family Health Care.
By Tina Hutchings
February 10, 2021
More than twelve months have passed since the retirement of Dr Paul McGinity, an event which left a significant health care gap for residents in the North-East.
Dr McGinity had practised medicine in the region for more than 43 years, and the closure of his general practice has had considerable impact for many people, not only in the Bridport and Scottsdale areas where Dr McGinity’s medical practices were located, but also for residents in many surrounding towns.
Prior to the closure, there was much concern in the community regarding future access to medical attention.
This concern has been justified, with Ochre Health in Scottsdale and Bridport striving to meet patient needs and doing their best to manage the influx of additional patients, as well as maintaining care for existing ones.
Some Scottsdale residents transferred to Lilydale Family Health Care when it was announced that not only would Dr McGinity be retiring but the practices would close, and some have even sought medical attention at general practices in Launceston.
While it is undeniable that Ochre Health has done, and is doing, their best under such trying circumstances, wait times for an appointment to see a GP can be up to four weeks, and some patients have relied on Telehealth phone appointments for their medical needs.
In addition, continuity of care has been an issue, with most patients seeing locums rather than having a regular GP.
So, in what undoubtedly will be very welcome news for many in the North-East, Lilydale Family Health Care is happy to announce that their books are now open to new patients.
Had it not been for owners Colin and Helen Denney patients in the North-East may not have been so lucky.
There has been a GP service in Lilydale for decades, but just three years ago it looked like this would no longer be the case, as management at that time decided to close the general practice.
Colin and Helen Denney came to the rescue.
The Denneys owned the Lilydale Pharmacy at the time, and made the decision to learn some extra skills and embark on a new journey, managing a medical practice.
Helen and Colin also purchased the property beside the pharmacy for the medical practice, and started planning the expansion of the premises.
The old building was 100 years old and needed a bit of modernising. Four new consulting rooms and upstairs staff room/offices were added.
They opened the medical practice, Lilydale Family Health Care, two weeks after the previous one closed in January 2018 and sold the pharmacy eight months later.
In January 2020, two years after opening the new practice, renovations started for the new rooms.
Unfortunately, the arrival of Covid-19 threw the proverbial spanner in the works for the renovations.
2020 proved to be a challenging year, but the building process continued and now at the start of 2021, the work is nearly finished with just the car park remaining and some painting to do.
There are four doctors at the medical practice, two full time and two part time.
Dr Andrey Yuvchenko had been working in Lilydale for several years and wanted to stay with the community.
Dr Yuvchenko remains as a general practitioner at Lilydale.
Soon, two additional part-time GPs joined the practice, Dr Meredith Webb and Dr Gerald Vanderslink.
A new full-time doctor also joined the practice in January 2021 - Dr Aamir Mahmood, who has been working in Tasmania since 2012.
It’s expected that the expanded practice and extra doctors will go on to successfully service the medical needs of the community and ease some of the pressure that has been placed on Ochre Health.