The Long Drive for Basic Care
A two-hour round trip for a repeat script is becoming the norm for country South Australians. For fifth-generation grazier Michael Burford, it’s a blunt example of how basic healthcare access is failing people who live in rural and regional areas.
Michael lives and works on Merngenia Station near Cavenagh. Until his early 40s, he was fit and healthy. Years of football kept him strong but after retiring from the game and stepping away from regular training, his health slowly shifted. Weight crept on. Hangovers lingered longer.
After an eight-week wait to see a GP in Orroroo, routine blood tests rang alarm bells. His liver results suggested alcohol consumption at extreme levels, the equivalent of “four bottles of vodka a day”. The numbers certainly didn’t match reality.
Unlike many Aussie blokes, Michael doesn’t shy away from “health stuff”. From personal experience, he’s acutely aware of the mental, emotional and physical toll farming can take and the extra barriers rural people face in accessing care.
Even so, he took the results seriously and acted immediately. He stopped drinking, changed his diet, went on cholesterol medication and lost 15 kilograms.
Six months later, little had changed.
“I’ve done everything I should be doing. My diet’s good, I don’t eat much fat. I feel like I’ve made great improvements, but I’ve still got a problem, and I don’t know what it is. Why is it still hurting?”
An ultrasound at Port Pirie Hospital confirmed his liver was enlarged.
“I actually thought it was my ticker,” Michael says. “Every time I laid on my left side, my heart was pumping hard. But the doctor said no — my liver was twice its normal size. That rang alarm bells.”
What followed was not clarity, but delay. GP shortages, long wait times and a lack of continuity have made it hard to move beyond basic monitoring.
“I’ve never had the same doctor twice,” Michael says. “Every time you go, you have to re-explain yourself and go through it all again.”
Since the closure of the Goyder’s Line Medical Centre in Peterborough, Michael’s nearest GP is now in Orroroo. The trip takes two hours return.
“You can’t get in to see a GP and they’re not allowed to give you scripts in advance,” he says. “Each script lasts six months. Even if it’s just antacids, nothing’s changed and you’re feeling fine, you still have to come in.”
For people living and working on farms, those visits are rarely simple.
“Most of us come into town once a week for mail, food and fuel,” he says. “You used to be able to tie that in with seeing a doctor. Now that half-day trip turns into two days because you have to go to Orroroo or Jamestown or Pirie. For a script renewal.”
Michael manages the travel. He worries about those who cannot.
“As a young bloke, I manage,” he says. “But I worry about older neighbours in their 70s and 80s, especially those who don’t drive anymore.”
Having battled his own mental health challenges, Michael is especially concerned about the impact clinic closures are having across rural communities.
“One farmer in Australia suicides every 10 days,” he says. “A lot of that comes down to having nowhere to turn. When you ring a doctor and are told you’ll wait four to six weeks – that’s not good. Even a week can be too long.”
He believes access, not perfection, is what matters most.
“That first step is massive in the country,” he says. “If you could talk to someone and get the ball rolling, it would make all the difference. Right now, the system makes that first step too hard.”
Michael points to unused infrastructure across regional towns and simple solutions already proven elsewhere.
“We’ve got one of the biggest hospitals in the area and it’s three-quarters shut down,” he says. “The space is there.”
This is the sixth story in the From Here to Healthcare series, a grassroots storytelling initiative led by Alex Thomas and supported by Greater SA. The series shares real experiences from country South Australians to show how access to healthcare changes lives and outcomes, based on postcode alone.
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