A town in southern Tasmania could be without a permanent doctor by the end of the year in the midst of a widespread GP shortage.
Patrick O'Sullivan will finish up at the Dover Medical Centre in the next six months after more than five years in the role.
Despite efforts to find a replacement, his impending departure is creating angst in the community, which has an older population and a higher rate of chronic disease.
"There's a very real fear that if our doctors go, a number of people will have to move out of the community to see a doctor or they won't see anyone at all," Dover resident Jen Hadaway said.
"It's not a good scenario to contemplate."
Huon Valley Council owns and operates the Dover and Geeveston medical centres, and said it would keep them open by bringing in locums to fill the positions of permanent doctors until replacements were found.
Geeveston is also in need of a permanent doctor, and there will be two vacancies at Dover by the end of the year.
"We understand this is concerning times for our community, however, council is determined to continue operating the centres," Huon Valley Council Acting Mayor Sally Doyle said.
"Hand on heart, we [council] are not closing the medical centres in Dover and Geeveston."
There are more than 60 GP job vacancies in the state, and some take months, even a year, to be filled.
"But there are problems in attracting doctors to these areas."
The Huon Valley Council is using temporary GPs but that means both centres will run at a loss, costing taxpayer dollars.
"Council has committed to covering the $434,000 operating deficit in the 2022-23 budget," Ms Doyle said.
"Without the support of locums, we recognise we cannot continue to provide this important healthcare service to the community."
The GP crisis is keenly felt in regional areas across Tasmania, and there are concerns that without immediate action, the problem could get worse.
"The situation in Dover and Ouse is just an indication of where we are travelling if funding for general practice is not improved," Tasmanian chair of RACGP Tim Jackson said.
"General practice is not currently sustainable."
In an effort to address the doctor crisis, the state government suggested a take-over of the operation of general practices in regional and rural Tasmania.
"Our expectation is that the federal government would pay, and the state government would employ GPs and have our GPs in key settings to provide more access at this point in time," Premier Jeremy Rockliff said.
"This is one idea, and I would suggest to the federal government there are many other ideas we could work on together."
The Australian Medical Association of Tasmania welcomed the announcement but said it was not a perfect solution.
"We need decent federal government support, and thankfully the state government is getting involved," AMA Tasmanian president John Saul said.
"But the trouble is, we know state-run clinics haven't been successful in the past. We've got good existing general practice services, so why not support them?"
Mr Rockliff said the issue was raised during yesterday's cabinet meeting in Canberra, with the federal government committing to improving the state's health system, particularly regarding the connection between GPs and hospitals.
"I look forward to discussing further with the federal government, as we progress this ongoing work."
But Dover residents like Ms Hadaway want less talk and more action.
"I think there needs to be a clear way forward, the community needs to know there are doctors who they can rely on," she said.
