Town offers £440,000 salary for job – THREE TIMES the going rate – but still no one wants it
A REMOTE district of South Australia is so desperate to hire a doctor it is offering a staggering £440,000 salary to attract a qualified GP.
Officials are hoping the incredible salary - three times the average earned by a GP in the rest of country - will lure a doctor to the semiarid Mallee district.
Located some 240kn outside of Adelaide, the rural area of Mallee is suffering from a severe shortage of medics.
To solve the problem, the Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network has advertised a position offering the successful candidate a very attractive salary range of $475,763 to $752,224 per annum (£280,252 to £443,105).
Non-specialist docs on average received a taxable income of $232,903 (£137,193) in 2019-2020, according to the Australian Tax Office.
With this in mind, the authorities have gone even further by offering extra perks including employer superannuation contributions and salary sacrifice.
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Young doctors have been reticent to take up jobs in regional or rural areas in South Australia, because they fear there are no work opportunities for their romantic partners.
The successful candidate will be expected to serve the towns of Lameroo and Pinnaroo - home to 1,564 people - covering a distance of over 40km.
The GP will run inpatient, outpatient and GP services, as well as supervise trainees and fully qualified GP registrars.
The local health authority said it is desperate to fill this vacancy after a long-serving GP left.
"We have already employed a part-time GP to partially fill the gap left by the departing GP and we look forward to attracting an additional GP to our region to increase the services available in the Southern Mallee district," the network said in a statement.
"While this is the first example in the region where a salaried GP may be placed in a general practice service, SA Health employs GPs in other locations including some medical staff at Riverland General Hospital."
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In rural hospitals such as Riverland General Hospital, the shortage of doctors is so bad that they are offering $3,000 for single shifts.