Letter to the Editor: Doctors leaving without notice

DEAR News Of The Area,

CAN anyone, readers or a medical practitioner, explain the protocol if a GP/specialist is leaving the area or retiring?

Our first experience came with a well-known local specialist centre.

If we attended four or five times in a row and saw the same doctor, that would be considered a long term relationship.

The second was our GP who we visited over a six-year period.

He retired with no notice.

We were promptly shafted to another GP who we did not want, so we left.

Then our skin cancer doctor closed shop.

I was trying to make my biannual appointment and the phone was dead.

We visited his once rooms to find another doctor there.

Is this normal practice for medical professionals to simply close without notifying their regular patients?

I’m starting to get a little paranoid, is it me they are trying to avoid?

Does anyone have an answer?

Regards,
Liz PHILPOTT,
Boambee East.