Rochester and Elmore District Health Service (REDHS) was informed on Wednesday, 5 June that long-standing and highly respected General Practitioner Dr Nigel Fang, of the Rochester Medical Clinic, will be retiring from his medical practice on Friday, 28 June. He will simultaneously be retiring from his Visiting Medical Officer role at REDHS.

REDHS would like to acknowledge Dr Fang’s service over a long period of time to REDHS and to the local community, more broadly. Not only had Dr Fang provided continuity of care to the patients who he had “inherited” with the Rochester Medical Clinic, but he had also worked tirelessly through the succeeding years, covering the hospital roster on a week on/week off basis, and during multiple times of hardship such as floods and the COVID pandemic. We understand that like many other rural general practices, it had been extremely difficult for Dr Fang to recruit additional medical practitioners to join his practice, share his workload and eventually succeed him. While we will sorely miss his expertise and dedication in the time to come, and the services that Rochester Medical Clinic provides, we certainly recognise Dr Fang’s need to enjoy his life in retirement, which does involve the closure of the clinic.

The REDHS Board and Executive team realise that Dr Fang’s retirement will have a huge impact on medical services for REDHS and the local community, and promptly established a Board-level working party to support the necessary responses. To date, these have included facilitating handovers of care for the aged care residents who Dr Fang cares for, developing plans for the ongoing operations of REDHS Urgent Care Centre (currently co-located at the Rochester Medical Clinic) and liaising with key stakeholders such as the Campaspe Medical Centre, Victorian Department of Health and Murray Primary Health Network. We will provide further updates to the community in a timely way.

“We are sorry to learn recently that Dr Nigel Fang will shortly be retiring from medical practice. We are grateful for the many years of dedicated service that Dr Fang has provided to REDHS and the Rochester community, and we wish him the very best for the future.” Darren Clark, Interim Chief Executive Officer stated.

“Dr Fang’s retirement will leave a palpable hole in the Rochester medical community and the local healthcare landscape. The health service is fortunate to have the solid support of our Board, to coordinate our responses through this challenging time. We are very aware that our actions need to support not only the health service, but also the community of our district at large.” Mr Clark added.