More than 2000 Canberra residents and the ACT Government have made an 11th-hour plea to Primary Health Care to shelve its plans to close a medical centre.
The company will shut the Wanniassa Medical Centre today a decision that has sparked community outcry and prompted a parliamentary inquiry.
About 2200 people lodged their opposition, signing a petition sent to the company last night.
ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher has also sent a letter to management, urging it to ''take into account the considerable distress this decision has caused to hundreds of members of the Tuggeranong community''.
In a separate letter to her federal counterpart, Nicola Roxon, Ms Gallagher has lobbied for a new approach to tackle the chronic GP shortage in the ACT.
She asked the Commonwealth to consider four strategies, including setting up a GP super clinic and increasing the number of GP training places.
Primary Health Care will close the Wanniassa Medical Centre and move the seven doctors to the Phillip, arguing patients could access more services at the Woden clinic that had longer opening hours.
The Government hopes other GPs will take over the Wanniassa centre but it will hinge on whether Primary Health Care holds on to its lease, which expires in 2012.
The Australian National University senior lecturer with the Academic Unit of General Practice and Community Health, Sue Douglas, identified a second challenge, given the ''critical shortage'' of GPs.
''When clinics like Wanniassa pick and leave, it's not like you can have other GPs just coming in,'' she said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Jacqui Burke pushed for the parliamentary inquiry.
''The closure of the Wanniassa Medical Centre with only two weeks' notice is a matter of great concern to the approximately 60,000 patients who attend the practice and the wider community,'' Mrs Burke said yesterday.
The Government supported her motion to refer the issue to the Standing Committee on Health, which would report by August 26.
Ms Gallagher doubted the committee could review decisions made by a private company.
''Imagine any business that relocates from one end of Canberra to the another, you set up a committee inquiry every time that happens. It's just not a practical response,'' she said.
''But when I look at these things I always look at could it hurt? I don't think it can hurt.
''[The inquiry] may come up with something for us and Federal Government to consider ... and in that case, we should support it.''
Dr Douglas argued the shortage of GPs was exacerbated by Australia's ''dysfunctional'' system to register and accredit doctors who had trained overseas. ''Countries like Australia have always relied on international medical graduates to provide medical services, particularly to rural and remote regions,'' she said.
''Once a country has established the need to recruit an international medical graduate because they are unable to secure the services of a domestic graduate, it has an ethical responsibility to ensure that they encounter a fair system.''
This was not the case, according to Dr Douglas, who has first-hand experience with the system that she described as dysfunctional, complex and inefficient.
Dr Douglas who has 15 years' experience as a GP and academic moved more than two years ago from Canada to Australia to take up her position at the ANU. She is training this country's medical workforce but is still not working as a GP after trying to negotiate through the registration and accreditation system.
''There is the irony,'' she said. ''The proposed national registration system is an exciting opportunity to explore these options and build a better system for Australia in the future. But the success of these reforms will largely depend on the ability of the individual stakeholders to put aside their differences and self interests to work together towards a common goal the establishment of a health-care system that supports and respects all health-care workers, Australian and internationally trained alike.''