The closure of a Hunter medical clinic due to the GP shortage is a sign of things to come unless more is done to fix the problem, doctors say.
The Seaside Medical Centre at Fern Bay will close next month "due to the ongoing difficulty of doctor shortages".
The clinic, which operated with two full-time equivalent GPs, had about 1365 patients.
Dr Jafrin Mannan opened the Seaside clinic in 2019.
"I got tired of begging doctors to come and work for me," Dr Mannan said.
"There is always a shortage. I can only work five or six days a week."
She said the clinic was "like my baby".
"I feel sad. We built it from scratch from 2019 to a peak of about 1900 patients," Dr Mannan said.
In another blow to the region, the Mannering Park clinic in south Lake Macquarie is temporarily closed while it seeks to replace a retired doctor.
Adamstown GP clinic owner Milton Sales said it was difficult to find GPs willing to work "in areas that are peripheral to cities".
Dr Sales said this issue was worsened by fewer medical graduates choosing to become GPs.
He said 40 per cent of medical graduates were previously going into general practice, but "it's now about 15 per cent".
He said the "big picture" was that long-term solutions to this problem had not been found.
"So the problem will get worse before it gets better," he said.
Dr Mannan's Fern Bay patients will get the choice to join her Medowie clinic from October 4.
"I can accommodate them at the moment. I'm extending Medowie hours from 5pm to 6.30pm-7pm. I don't know what will happen in future," she said.
She said Fern Bay was classed as a metropolitan area under a federal model, so it missed out on incentives that nearby areas such as Medowie, Williamtown and other areas of the Hunter received.
Shortland MP Pat Conroy said Labor had reclassified the Hunter and Central Coast as "Distribution Priority Areas", providing GP practices with access to "the Bonded Medical Program and overseas-trained doctors".
The bonded program aims to provide more doctors in regional, rural and remote areas.
Cessnock, Muswellbrook, Singleton, Murrurundi, Merriwa, Scone and Denman were among 60 areas identified in NSW in 2022 as being at risk of critical doctor shortages.
And people in Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland can find it hard to book a GP appointment promptly.
Mr Conroy said "one of my biggest priorities is making it easier for people in our community to see a GP".
"Under the previous Liberal government, we had a decade of cuts and neglect to our healthcare system," he said.
"Unfortunately that's not something that can be fixed overnight."
The federal Department of Health and Aged Care released a report last month that estimated a shortfall of 6100 to 8900 full-time equivalent GPs by 2048.
The report said Australia had 39,449 GPs last year - a 1.5 per cent rise from 2022.
"Despite this growth, it remains insufficient to meet the healthcare needs of Australians, placing strain on both the health system and our current GP workforce," the report said.
The SMH reported in May that "only one in 10 students graduating from medicine degrees in 2023 said they wanted to become GPs".
Dr Mannan said young doctors "realise there's no point killing yourself as a GP for a lot less status and money" than specialists.
Mr Conroy said there had been "an increase of almost 20 per cent in the number of young doctors taking up general practice in Australia" this year.
"There's also been an increase in the number of newly-registered overseas-trained doctors practising in NSW from 867 in 2022-23 to 1028 in 2023-24."
He said the Albanese government provided more than $180 million this financial year to "support more than 5000 GPs in training, including up to 1600 new GPs each year".
