Local general practitioner at Cunninghame Arm Medical Centre, Dr Greg Hayes, has won a Victorian Rural Health Awards ran by Rural Workforce Agency Victoria which is a not-for-profit government funded organisation improving health care for rural, regional and Aboriginal communities.
Dr Hayes was nominated by his colleagues, past and present, in the Outstanding Contribution by a Rural GP category. His win was announced at a virtual award ceremony last Thursday.
Greg graduated from Monash University MBBS in 1971 and did his residency year at Prince Henry’s Hospital in 1972. After travelling overseas in 1973 he returned to Melbourne and worked as a locum at various practices including Clayton, Mentone and Highett to name a few.
In 1975 he took up a position as a senior resident at Queen Victoria Hospital in obstetrics and paediatrics. After completing this he joined Seaview Medical Centre in Beaumaris where he remained in general practice until 2000 but in 1998, he started locum work throughout country Victoria and New South Wales and returned to Beaumaris approximately every second month. Cunninghame Arm Medical Centre in Lakes Entrance was his first locum placement.
In October 2001 he took up his first Northern Territory placement in Alice Springs at Central Australian Aboriginal Congress followed by several weeks working on Bathurst Island and Melville Island, known as the Tiwi Islands, approximately 60 kilometres north of Darwin.
He returned to Victoria and continued working at various rural practices.
In 2003 he took a two-year contract working across the Northern Territory in Indigenous Health in remote locations from Kintore near the Western Australian border to Groote Eylandt in the east.
When this two-year period was complete, he returned to rural Victorian practices and began working at Cunninghame Arm Medical Centre in 2006, while continuing to spend time in remote Northern Territory practices in total spending nearly five years across a vast area.
Dr Greg Hayes has remained at CAMC ever since.
Practice director Dr David Campbell, in support of Dr Greg’s nomination, said: “Greg has served this community for more than 20 years, always with an honest, supportive and direct approach to patient care. He has a legendary sense of humour, mostly self-depricating, and it is both a pleasure and a professional highlight of my career to have the opportunity to work with Greg as a trusted senior colleague and leader in our practice.”
