The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows that 70 per cent of GPs are at least 45 years old, and more than a third are older than 55.

But the latest figures for the Central Victorian General Practice Network show the local situation is markedly worse.

A 2007 snapshot by the Rural Workplace Agency Victoria gives details of the local division of general practice as of November 30 last year.

It shows that 76 per cent of GPs in our area are older than 45.

Central Victorian GPs are more than a year older on average than their counterparts throughout regional Victoria, and our proportion of GPs older than 55 is also higher than average.

Central Victoria General Practice Network chief executive Kirk Warren said the RWAV report illustrated the challenges ahead for the region.

“The CVGPN, like all rural areas, is experiencing the same pressures regarding workforce and needs to manage this.

“We are fortunate in the CVGPN catchment area to have an excellent partnership between all key health stakeholders in terms of recruitment, retention and training issues for GPs.’’

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners national rural faculty chairwoman Kathryn Kirkpatrick said the entire health workforce was ageing, not just GPs.

“What we need to do is encourage the new generation of students and the GPs in training to come to rural areas,’’ she said.

“It depends what university you go to, but it can take six years to do a medicine degree, then two years in hospitals, then another three to four years on top of that to become a GP.

“So you’re looking at anywhere up to 12 years until a student becomes a fully fledged practising GP.

“We’ve seen an increase in incentives to attract young doctors to rural general practice, and that’s great.

“But I think we also need to look at alternative models of primary health care for communities so that they are provided with good-quality health care, even if it isn’t in the model they’re used to.’’