New medical centre start on schedule

WORK will begin on Monday on the new Healthscope medical centre to be built at Park Beach Plaza.

John Burns, the national business development manager for Healthscope Medical Centres, said they now had a signed lease with the owners of Park Beach Plaza and the new centre was due to open in late October or early November.

The centre is expected to open with 12 general practitioners, later expanding to 16 GPs.

Mr Burns said he would travel to the UK in November to try to persuade some English, Irish and Scottish doctors to relocate to Coffs Harbour.

The centre will also have a satellite radiology site and a pharmacy.

He said it would also have space for visiting specialists.

“It is very easy for doctors to practice medicine in certain areas of Australia and Coffs Harbour is one of them,” Mr Burns said.

Meanwhile he said they were still in commercial negotiations with a number of local GPs interested in relocating.

He said a name for the centre had not yet been decided, so they had given it a 'working title' of Park Beach Family Practice.

An architectural drawing of the planned building caused concern in March because it used the name of the existing Plaza Medical Centre, which does not plan to move from its present location inside the shopping centre.