Our four visiting surgeons – Drs Rob Padbury, Bill McLeay, Andrew Hunter and Tom Wilson – were the stars of a small farewell planned recently.

But the farewell soon snowballed into a dinner meeting: ‘Some Thank yous, Farewells and Welcomes’ for 40 doctors who had contributed to our region’s health-care for 30-50 years.

During the night of memories, fun and laughter Dr Peter Charlton, who had just retired from Hawkins Medical Clinic after 50 years of service reminisced about his career as a rural GP and obstetrician.

Dr Charlton also pinpointed the day in 1998 that our South East health system changed, and believes it has “continued to go downhill ever since”.

He said contract negotiations with SA Health were proceeding and one morning he had a knock on his door.

A “media person” asked how he felt about being sacked along with the other GPs and that the hospital “would now be run by four salaried medical officers”.

Dr Charlton said that was the first he knew about it and “the rest is history”.

He also highlighted the benefits of South East Medical Association meetings which were quarterly and attended by local GPs and specialists.

The meetings were a forum for education and information as well as networking and social gatherings.

But they came to an end when the SA Health Commission threatened the region’s doctors with legal action.

The commission’s bureaucrats claimed the forums were in breach of the ACCC laws for colluding “if we continued to meet and discuss professional matters and (we) could face prosecution”.

So the much needed forums were ripped from annual calendars of our region’s doctors and specialists.

Another speaker was our Dr Barrie Thompson, who retired 10 years ago after 30 years general practice in Naracoorte.

Dr Thompson, talked about the era of Naracoorte’s general surgeon Mr John Smith OAM who had provided 25 years of full surgical services to Naracoorte and the surrounding towns and districts.

Highlighting the skills of Mr Smith, he told a story of a person who had stolen a large vehicle, crashed it and sustained life-threatening injuries.

The injuries included pneumothorax, ruptured spleen, bilateral fracture forearms, a fractured femur as well as head injuries.

“These were all treated locally by Mr Smith and his team in the days before retrieval teams and the RFDS,” Dr Thompson said.

The injured man walked out of hospital 11 weeks later.

Following the retirement of Mr Smith in 1994, the hospital tried for 12 months to replace him with another resident replacement general surgeon, but could not.

So, it went out to tender for visiting teams. The Flinders team led by Head of Surgery and founder of the Liver Transplant Unit at Flinders Medical Centre, Mr Robert Padbury won the tender over the Royal Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth Hospitals “and provided a wonderful service for the last 27 years”.

Dr Brian Norcock talked about the transition to the visiting surgeons.

“Areas of need were identified and specialists were invited to come to Naracoorte,” Dr Norcock said.

“Very soon there were 20 visiting specialists and that number continues today.”

Dr Norcock talked about “the magic of Naracoorte” and our community spirit that had enabled fund raising for significant equipment the SA Health commission did not have budget plans for.

This included an ultrasound machine in the 1990’s followed by items like a sentinel node biopsy, lymphoedema clinic for breast cancer, a CT scan to the value of $700,000 raised by the community, Thomas emergency packs and also encouraged funding from SA Health for laparoscopic surgical equipment.

“A significant factor for Naracoorte is its strategic geographic position, being the only sub regional centre between Mount Gambier and Murray Bridge,” Dr Norcock said.

Robe’s Dr David Senior gave reflections from the coast and entertained the gathering with cases such as huge New Year’s Eve crowds.

On one occasion eight people spilled over the sea wall and required all their broken bones and lacerations to be mended.

Dr Senior also gave much deserved accolades to Dr Phil Tideman and his work setting up ICARNET.

This is the gold standard for a GP in the field to directly communicate with the appropriate specialist with one phone call. And transfers happened seamlessly.

It has helped Dr Tideman and local GPS see cardiac outcomes go from very poor for rural patients 20 years ago to now having success equal to that of city patients.

Dr Tideman spoke about his journey from growing up in the country, being a GP in Mount Gambier and then joining the Flinders cardiology team and being devoted to country areas, from which his ICARNET was developed.

Dr Robert Padbury talked about how his team “thoroughly enjoyed their time coming to the country” and the people and colleagues they have met.

He emphasised how good it was to have networks and that the visiting specialists were there to complement, not compete with the local workforce.

He was keen that networks continued to develop strongly between local specialists and GPs and their city colleagues and strong links between country doctors and city specialists with tertiary hospitals such as the Royal Adelaide and Flinders Medical Centre.

Dr Bill McLeay talked about what amazing things are done in country hospitals.

He recalled a woman once having “just been put to sleep” (anaesthetised ) for some life-saving surgery when Dr Tony Cohen “crashed into theatre from the labour ward and said we have got to get this baby out NOW” due to a massive placental abruption/internal haemorrhage and severe foetal distress.

The patient was allowed to wake up on the operating table, Dr Shaun Renfrey did a crash induction on the hospital bed, and soon the baby was out and crying.

Then the other life-saving surgery was resumed.

“Just another day in the life of a country GP, which happens rarely but when it happens the skills need to be there, and the team,” Dr McLeay said.

During the evening special acknowledgement was made of Mr Barney McCusker and Henry Forbes who have provided orthopaedic and trauma services to the South East for many decades.

Likewise resident general surgeons, Mr Richard Strickland and Mark Landy and anaesthetist Kevin Johnston.

The unique skills sets of Tony Cohen and David Mills were also praised for not only their GP and accident and emergency work, but also obstetrics and anaesthetics, surgery and skin care.

A second function was held in Naracoorte the following night enabling theatre staff to farewell the four surgeons.

Naracoorte Area Health Advisory Council (NAHAC) chairman Barrie Moyle talked about the achievements and pride locals have had in our community hospital for many decades.

Dr Padbury reiterated how they have thoroughly enjoyed coming to Naracoorte and paid tribute to the NHS nursing team in theatre and on the wards, clinical work, the community and the hospitality.

Head theatre nurse Trina Berry thanked the visiting specialists for their professionalism and guidance regarding equipment and their skills mix, so that joint replacements, cholecystectomies etcetera could be performed in Naracoorte.

This article appeared in Naracoorte Community News.