While the reopening of the only general practitioner clinic in Gulgong after an 18-month closure is welcome news for locals, it also highlights a deepening GP crisis affecting rural, regional and remote NSW.
The return of GP services to Gulgong was the direct result of financial incentives and assistance being provided by the Doctors 4 Mudgee Region initiative, which aims to attract ten doctors to the Central West region over the next three years.
President of Local Government NSW (LGNSW), Mayor Darcy Byrne, said the experience of Gulgong was being repeated across the State, with many towns either without a resident GP or facing severe shortages, forcing residents to travel hours for basic primary care.
“When a town has to celebrate the reopening of its only GP clinic after 18 months, that should set off alarm bells,” Byrne said. “Dozens of rural, regional and remote councils are continuing to report the need for urgent action to ensure their communities have adequate access to GPs – a basic human right.
“Councils in small and regional communities are increasingly stepping in to fill gaps in the provision of primary health care, often funding services that should sit with State and Federal governments. But they can’t always fill those gaps and the human consequence is that thousands of citizens across NSW are simply missing out on seeing a doctor.”
A 2025 NSW parliamentary inquiry found that rural and remote primary care is in crisis, with GP shortages predicted to worsen and more than 40 towns expected to lose their doctor by the end of the decade.
“Access to a GP shouldn’t depend on your postcode,” Byrne said. “Communities are also dealing with closed birthing units, stretched emergency departments and short-term locum solutions that are costly for the government and lack stability and certainty for patients.”
Byrne congratulated the not-for-profit initiative Doctors 4 Mudgee Region on its work to secure the services of two doctors for Gulgong Medical Centre.
The initiative is backed by Mid-Western Regional Council and three local mining companies. Mayor Byrne acknowledged that many other councils across NSW had also stepped up to the same challenge on behalf of their communities.
“They’ve done an outstanding job, but it shouldn’t be the responsibility of councils and local businesses to ensure basic primary health care is provided,” Byrne said. “The fact that local employers are having to fund and initiate programs to attract GPs to serve in their communities is a really worrying sign of the times.”
Mayor Byrne said LGNSW continued to take a strong position in the fight to ensure rural and regional communities had equitable access to health services.
LGNSW is calling for the meaningful implementation of all 44 recommendations of the NSW parliamentary inquiry, which cover the breadth of what is needed for rural and regional communities, including addressing service delivery gaps, transport services to healthcare, growing the primary health sector as well as workforce recruitment and retention strategies for doctors, nurses and other health professionals.
