When corporate giant Primary Health Care abruptly closed the Wanniassa Medical Centre in 2008, the community came out fighting, organising protests, writing petitions and pleading with the company to change its decision.
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The closure also sparked an inquiry by the Legislative Assembly. But it was all to no effect.
Seven years later, Wanniassa is celebrating.
A new bulk billing medical clinic has opened, in the same spot as the previous clinic, and its books are already filling fast.
Two GPs and a nurse are currently working in the new Wanniassa Medical Clinic, with another two doctors to join the practice within the next three months.
The clinic is run not by a big company but by a Canberra success story – the community owned National Health Co-op – which started in Charnwood and has expanded to six clinics in the ACT in less than six years. And the co-op has plans to extend its successful member-owned model across the nation.
Annual membership to the clinics is $100 and covers all dependents, giving members access to bulk-billed services, including GPs, psychologists, dieticians and nurse practitioners.
The co-op already has clinics in Charnwood, Belconnen, Evatt, Holt, Chisholm and, now, Wanniassa.
National Health Co-op managing director Adrian Watts said a substantial donation by Service One Alliance Bank had allowed the Wanniassa clinic to open, as well as two new clinics in Belconnen and another in NSW, the exact locations of the other three soon to be released.
The bank's chief executive officer Peter Carlin confirmed it would be providing $1.5 million over four years to the National Health Co-op, which was formerly known as the West Belconnen Health Co-op.
Mr Carlin said the bank and the co-op were like-minded organisations, owned by their members.
He said the bank wanted to contribute to the co-op to help provide a service obviously sought after by the community.
Mr Watts said the new clinics would bring the total run by the co-op to nine, with the number of GPs employed by them close to 50.
Membership of the co-op was now at 30,000, but expected to reach 50,000 within 18 months, including allowing for up to 6000 members of the Wanniassa community to access the new clinic.
Back in 2008, Primary Health Care closed its Wanniassa surgery to relocate its seven contracted doctors to the Phillip Medical Centre. An Assembly inquiry at the time noted it was a business decision and unlikely to be reversed.
Primary Health Care held a commercial lease on the privately owned building in Wanniassa and would not allow a medical centre to be established on the same site until recently, due to structural changes within the company.
The Assembly inquiry recommended, as a result, that the ACT government investigate "the possibility of incorporating provisions in crown leases to protect community interests".
While Canberra was still suffering from a GP shortage, Mr Watts said he had a stack of job applications from doctors across Australia and overseas who wanted to work for the co-op.
He believed it could attract doctors because the co-op provided ongoing training and support for the doctors. It did not accept walk-in patients but worked on appointments only.
"The larger corporate run clinics don't have that same flexibility and community approach as does the co-operative model," he said.
Mr Watts said overseas trained doctors were supported to ensure they had the correct qualifications to work in Australia.
"We only get the cream of the crop here in Australia. We can assure our patients absolutely they have the right levels and skills," he said.
And after "starting in the back blocks of Canberra" National Health Co-op would continue to grow.
"We'll be in every state and territory within the next five years," Mr Watts said.
"This is the absolute model for health care across the world."
Capital Chemist Wanniassa co-owner Honor Penprase said the loss of the previous medical centre had been a "big disappointment and shock" and the new clinic was more than welcomed.
"It's fantastic news for our community and people are certainly excited. We're getting a lot of enquiries," Ms Penprase said.
