Bendigo business Broughton Consulting conducted a nationwide search for a new psychologist earlier this year that ended without a single application being received.  

Psychologist Jeff Broughton said he would now employ a recruitment company to look for a staff member overseas. 

“I would be less likely to have a problem getting staff in Melbourne,” Mr Broughton said. 

The problem in Bendigo, Mr Broughton said, was a dearth of  psychology courses and internships, which left those interested in pursuing a career in mental health no choice but to leave the central Victorian city. 

His partner, Eryn, is completing her Masters of Clinical Psychology at Melbourne University and while she wanted to undertake her placement in Bendigo, Ms Broughton said placements at nearby providers were numbered. 

The masters student is faced with spending as many as four days every week in Melbourne next year if she does not secure a placement closer to home. 

“If people have to move their family down there to study, they’ll stay down there,” Ms Broughton said. 

As Broughton Consulting’s search for a psychologist grows longer, so too does the list of patients it turns away. 

The last time the practice opened itself to new referrals, it received 35 in just one day.

It was a problem psychologists across regional Victoria were experiencing, with Mr Broughton’s previous practice in Kyabram receiving 200 referrals within its first year of operation. 

Waiting disparaged many of those who reached out for mental health assistance, Ms Broughton said. 

“It can be really distressing,” she said. “They go to copious amounts of psychologists and they've not been able to get in.”