A COUPLE of former Northern Tasmanian doctors have come home to set up a new GP practice and a possible after-hours acute care service at Launceston's former Duke of Wellington hotel site.
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Husband and wife doctors Jerome Muir Wilson and Jaclyn O'Keefe have brought friend and fellow doctor Gaurav Singh from Queensland with them to help set up a medical centre on the site of the hotel in Wellington Street.
Dr Muir Wilson said the couple liked the former hotel site because of its proximity to the Launceston General Hospital.
"There is a gate connecting the back of the block to gardens at the LGH," Dr Muir Wilson said yesterday.
He was speaking from Gladstone, Queensland, where he and his wife have been working as locum doctors for the past 12 months.
"We've had 12 jobs in the past 12 months as locums working at places like Tom Price, in the Pilbara, Kalgoorlie, Tully, in Queensland, Yass and Manila, in country New South Wales and Smithton, George Town and Norwood, in Tasmania as well as Gladstone," he said.
Doctors Muir Wilson and O'Keefe have been looking for a suitable site to develop a Launceston medical centre for more than a year.
"This was by far the best site," Dr Muir Wilson said.
They plan to include a pharmacy, pathology and other medical services as well as the GP practice.
But they are also waiting to hear whether their application for federal funding to add a walk-in, 24-hour acute care service is successful before they finalise plans.
"We have been told that there is $22 million for walk-in centres in Launceston and Hobart and there is nothing as yet in Launceston," Dr Muir Wilson said.
"We would have an emergency 8am to 10pm service, seven days a week, which would take pressure off emergency services at the LGH."
Dr Muir Wilson said the practice would also work in with Launceston doctor Steve Tredinnick, who already provided a 24-hour service on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
"We would do the days earlier in the week when he wasn't working," Dr Muir Wilson said.
They hope to have the former Duke of Wellington site, which they bought a week ago, refurbished and open for business early next year.
