WATCH: Dan Tehan on GP shortages

Across western Victoria, communities are struggling to keep their GP clinics open. 

In some towns, doctors have packed up, and patients are driving hours for basic care.

Warrnambool, Hamilton, Portland - all have seen clinics close in the past few years. 

So I asked local MP and Shadow Energy Minister Dan Tehan what’s gone wrong and what can be done.

So, the Coalition did introduce incentives to attract doctors, and the Albanese government has since adjusted how locations are classified, broadening some of those incentives to also cover certain outer suburban areas.

But, this has been done program-by-program and by reclassifying locations, not by a single, general ‘extension’ of every rural relocation payment to all outer metropolitan suburbs.

Tehan says the system needs stronger incentives to bring doctors back to country towns - and that it’s about more than just money.

Health experts agree regional clinics are struggling - and they point to other causes too: falling Medicare rebates, fewer GP trainees, and a nationwide drop in bulk-billing.

The government has reinstated some rural incentive payments, but doctors say much deeper reform is needed to make country practice sustainable.

Watch the full video below.