A federal MP says his home city’s GP crisis, which has triggered patients to abuse practice staff because they cannot get an appointment, remains linked to GP recruitment rule changes from three years ago.

General practice in Mount Gambier, SA’s second largest city, has been in the spotlight after the operator of its urgent care clinic (UCC) entered liquidation. Practice staff have reported daily abuse from patients who cannot get appointments as a result of GPs across the city closing their books.

Tony Pasin, the Liberal MP for Barker, told AusDoc that “no-one at the coalface” was to blame.

He said that Mount Gambier had never recovered from policy changes in 2022 that extended distribution priority area (DPA) status to all Modified Monash Model-2 areas.