Wagga Wagga has been blessed by the faith of two doctors and their quick diagnosis of how to remedy the town's chronic shortage of GPs.
Egyptian-born medics Ayman Shenouda and Samiha Azab moved to the regional New South Wales city for work, expecting to stay for only a year.
Instead, they have made it their home permanently and — remarkably – attracted four dozen other overseas-trained doctors to the region.
Their secret trick? The bricks and mortar of a church, to feed the spiritual needs of new recruits.
"This church has sorted out the shortage of doctors in the Riverina, Murrumbidgee," Dr Shenouda said.
"Forty-seven doctors were attracted to this church, and it made a big difference."
As Coptic Orthodox Christians, the church is central to their spiritual and social lives, so the doctors set about establishing one in Wagga Wagga within a few years of moving there.
First, they convinced their bishop in Sydney to establish a place of worship out west and then fundraised to buy an old church that happened to be on the market.
In the years since, the church has helped to attract a community of Egyptian-born doctors — and their families — to the town, who have in turn created a thriving GP practice.
Dr Shenouda said the six-week waiting lists patients once faced, were gone.
"I'm proud to be part of getting Wagga to a place where there's quality care for patients equivalent to that of big cities," he said.
Dr Azab — also a GP — concedes she never expected to end up in a country town of 60,000 when she and Dr Shenouda left Cairo, a bustling metropolis of 9.5 million people.
"It was hard in the beginning," she said.
"But everyone was very supportive. We bought a house straight away, we anchored ourselves.
"It was a beautiful journey."
Barriers keeping other overseas doctors away from rural Australia
Overseas-trained doctors are the backbone of rural healthcare in Australia, but the process to recruit them can cost upwards of $25,000 and take up to 21 months.
A report by respected former public servant Robyn Kruk has urged national cabinet to make urgent changes that could make a big difference, including fast-tracking doctors from more countries.
Australia's English language requirements, for example, are "onerous" according to the report, which recommends bringing the standards in line with the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
This change alone could enable an extra 2,750 GPs to be registered over five years.
Lifting the age threshold for permanent skilled visa applicants over 45 could see an additional 4,500 doctors recruited in the same time frame.
Once they arrive in Australia, overseas-trained doctors are required to practice medicine for up to 10 years in rural and regional areas and Dr Shenouda said the training and support on offer was often "appalling".
He said rather than forcing doctors to move to a country town, it should be made more attractive for them to live and settle there.
"A lot of overseas-trained doctors are coming to Australia to have a chance at a better life, so I try to give them the security that they need to have to achieve their goals," Dr Shenouda said.
"They don't mind coming to a rural area, but they worry about being isolated and neglected."
Marian Dover is also from Cairo but moved to Sydney as a child before training as a rural generalist. Among Australia's medical graduates, she is something of a rarity.
Only around 10 per cent of locally trained doctors are opting to specialise in general practice — a figure that's fallen from about 50 per cent — and even fewer are willing to move to the country.
Dr Dover, who lives and works in Port Macquarie, said while overseas doctors account for about half of the health workforce in regional Australia, locally trained doctors needed to be encouraged to go bush.
"I love my job. I tell people there's nothing I'd rather do," she said.
"It's a diverse workload. I see patients in general practice, I work in emergency departments, and I work in maternity.
"I did a caesarean section just last weekend."
This week's federal budget increased funding for GPs by tripling the incentive of bulk-billing certain patients.
While this would help, Dr Dover said bigger changes were needed to keep GP clinics from closing and she urged the federal government to consider paying rural doctors a salary rather than the current Medicare fee-for-service.
"General practice is one of those specialties where we're invisible until you lose us. We need to fund and support GPs because losing GPs is devastating," she said.
In regional areas, people typically have to travel further distances, wait longer, and have a smaller pool of doctors available when they need care.
The impact of that is profound with statistics showing those in rural and remote Australia are more likely to live shorter lives because medical conditions go unnoticed or untreated.
Some towns are so desperate for a permanent GP that they're making extraordinarily lucrative offers to lure doctors away from metro areas.
Dr Shenouda said a person's postcode should never determine their level of healthcare and expressed frustration at the "very bad situation" rural general practice was in.
"It's a bit disappointing really because there are solutions," he said.
Wagga Wagga is fortunate that he found one.
