Bendigo Bank Pambula and Bega has donated $60,000 to ensure the people of Eden can maintain access to vital medical services.
The major donation from Bendigo Bank Pambula and Bega, a community-owned organisation, will allow the Curalo Medical Clinic to keep its doors open as it moves into a new community-led future.
“This is a milestone donation for us and our first towards keeping a vital medical service afloat,” said Tim Shepherd, Chair of Community Bank Pambula and District.
“We donated $10,000 a while ago, and we were thrilled to give another $50,000 to this great cause,” he said.
“Ensuring medical services are available to the Eden community is something very important to us and we’re very proud to be a part of.”
The generous donation has been given to Creators of Community Ownership, a local not-for-profit social enterprise who will be taking over the Curalo Medical Clinic in October 2023.
Their vision is to keep medical services at an optimum level in the Bega Valley, supporting health, connection, enterprise and wellbeing.
“Without this donation from Bendigo Bank Pambula and Bega we simply wouldn’t have been able to get this social enterprise up and running so soon,” said April Merrick, Co-Founder of Creators of Community Ownership.
“We are committed to improving health outcomes in the community and taking ownership of the Curalo Medical Clinic is the first step in that journey. We’re thankful to Bendigo Bank Pambula and Bega and the amazing donation,” Ms Merrick concluded.
Ms Merrick said the money will ensure they can cover legal, accounting and admin costs to keep the clinic doors open as well some to put towards a campaign to attract a new doctor to Eden.
“Dr (Michael) Pentin, has been operating the clinic for over 35 years, and providing services to the community,” Ms Merrick said
“He’s also been trying to retire for many years an dhe’s been very vocal to all levels of government that there isn’t an easy way to sell a medical practice at the moment,” she said.
“There aren’t many buyers especially in a regional or remote area like Eden, so Michael said he would either have to shut the doors or be dragged out in a box and we didn’t want to see either of those,”
“It all comes back to the issue that the businesses can’t succeed or be sold and the main reason for that is that to own a medical clinic, if you’re a GP buying in, you have to run the clinic and have business skills but you have to be the GP as well, and new GP’s don’t want to take on that burden.”
“So we thought if someone else comes in with business skills, then the GPs can just be GPs rather than being business owners which they didn’t train to do.”
Under the new model not-for-profit community-led set up, the clinic can’t be bought out by a corporate with profits to go either back into the community or towards saving another vital business in the Bega Valley.
Ms Merrick said the community can support the Curalo Medical Clinic by helping to fundraise, or donating money, or providing knowledge of good rental properties in the area that a new doctor could live in, as well using the clinic and supporting it in that way.
Bendigo Bank Pambula and Bega has returned over $300,000 this financial year to volunteer organisations, sporting clubs, festivals and events from their bi-annual grants program and will continue this into the future.
Image: Curalo Medical Clinic