In a few short months, a small town in North-West New South Wales has undergone a dramatic transformation. Spring Ridge has gone from having a single shop and a pub, to hosting its own pharmacy and much-needed GP clinic, and it turns out romance had a hand in it all.
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00:00 When Chloe Kay fell in love with a farmer, fate was soon to give Spring Ridge on the
00:06 New South Wales Liverpool plains a much needed lifeline.
00:11 Her training as a pharmacist saw her put down roots and set up shop.
00:18 When I first met Andrew and I said it was in the middle of nowhere but he always claims
00:21 it's the centre of everywhere.
00:24 I was born and brought up on this farm and been here all my life, never lived anywhere
00:30 else except on this farm.
00:33 GPs have always been hard to get into and when you do see one potentially after a long
00:39 wait it'll be someone different each time.
00:43 But times are changing.
00:45 Chloe's Pharmacy has been built on the bones of the old general shop.
00:49 It's a service locals used to have to drive hours for and after a few months of filling
00:54 scripts Chloe received a call that would deliver another big change to Spring Ridge.
01:00 About a month ago I got a call from the Primary Health Network to ask if I'd be interested
01:04 in hosting a GP.
01:10 It was primarily through the Primary Health Network and this was an opportunity that they
01:15 saw that I could meet in a physical capacity complemented by telehealth.
01:19 Dr Boyd's consultation room is nothing special but the town doesn't seem to mind.
01:25 I think they're grateful.
01:27 I think they're really relieved to have an opportunity to see a GP locally.
01:32 Yesterday I was speaking with someone and they said that their husband's on the farm.
01:37 He currently travels to Tamworth a couple of hours, sits in the waiting room for a couple
01:41 of hours because the GPs there are busy and drives back a couple of hours so that's a
01:45 working day.
01:46 Dr Boyd is now doing in-person consultations twice a month with follow-up appointments
01:51 over telehealth and even though he's just settled in Spring Ridge he sees it as a blueprint
01:57 for other regions.
01:59 I think that's the opportunity to rethink how we do general practice.
02:02 Once you've seen Dr Boyd once in person you can access telehealth for a year.
02:08 I think that'll be a real game changer for the people on properties too.
02:13 A little town where love has gone a long way.
02:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]