Services Provided by the Practice

The Kapunda and Eudunda Medical Practice provide General Practice from two locations; our main large practice is in the township of Kapunda
and our branch practice in Eudunda.

We provide inpatient services in conjunction with the solo GP in Kapunda to the Kapunda Hospital.

These services include:

	Emergency Services - the hospital is the exclusive provider of 24 hour emergency services to the local district. Happily, this does not tend to be enormous and at least half of our on call sleeps are undisturbed.
	Inpatient Management - all inpatient care is provided by GPs. The hospital is equip with 23 acute beds.
	Obstetric Services - approximately 70 deliveries a year comprising of low risk obstetrics, delivering after 37 weeks of gestation.
	Anaesthetic Services - to general surgeon, gynaecologist, gastroenterologist, and ENT, Orthopaedic and urological surgeons. This comprises of 2 half day lists on most weeks.
	A medical service to the attached newly constructed aged care facility comprising 6 high care and 20 low care beds.
	The opportunities to provide Surgical Services exist for the suitably qualified.
	Radiology by GPs- Xrays are taken by GPs; only after completion of a course run by the South Australian government.

The town of Eudunda, is located 27 km from Kapunda and is where the other campus of the combined health service is situated. There are 6 acute beds in this facility, and an emergency department. This hospital has an aged care focus, with 17 high care beds. There is also an attached senior citizens hostel with a further 18 low care beds. The Kapunda and Eudunda Medical Practice is the exclusive provider of medical services to this hospital.

We enjoy the benefit of having a captive community, currently with little medical opposition. This imparts us with the rare privilege of providing a true “cradle to grave”, family oriented medical services.

We also have an exceptional relationship with the health service, working in a spirit of mutual cooperation and support with the hospital staff. The procedural work, emergency and inpatient care provided offers a degree of variety unobtainable to any other Australian field of medicine.

Most of our doctors will consult 4 days a week. This is flexible. A typical day will involve a hospital ward round at 0830, followed by GP consulting sessions from 0930 to 1300 and 1400 to 1700. An extended half hour traveling time is allowed if there is a requirement to travel between the practices. Theatre commitments tend to start at 0800. From time to time a visit to the hospital will be necessary during the day or after consulting. One Doctor has an after hours session once a week, we do no regular general practice consulting on weekends; as we do provide the after hours service on the weekends as a part of the on call arrangements.

The typical on call arrangement is one weeknight on most weeks, and one weekend in 5 dependent upon the current staffing levels. On call is remote, only going into the hospital as required.

The on call arrangements will involve covering both the Kapunda and Eudunda campuses. All after hours calls will go to the hospital, and the registered nurse on duty will handle these, and triage accordingly. On weekends, a typical day will commence at Kapunda with ward rounds (seeing all patients of the practice) followed by an outpatient session. There may or may not need to be a trip up to Eudunda hospital to provide a similar; albeit generally quicker service.

Despite the autonomy and breadth of practice coming with rural practice, we are very well backed up indeed in terms of specialist and tertiary medical services. Many specialists visit the area, and the Adelaide CBD services is only an hour and a quarter away from Kapunda. In an emergency, there is a tertiary hospital only 45 minutes away by road. Kapunda is only a 20 minute helicopter flight from Adelaide by the aero medical retrieval service. This is a very well established, rural practice friendly service with a helipad at the Kapunda Hospital.

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