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Golden boy... with a silver lining

Drew Ginn and Cameron McKenzie-McHarg have put South Gippsland in the international spotlight, winning gold and silver medals in the rowing at the Beijing Olympics.

Drew and Cameron both have their origins in the region.

While Cameron’s parents live and work in the town, Drew’s are based in Inverloch.

Drew spearheaded Australia to its best day at an Olympic rowing regatta by winning gold despite being unable to bend over last week.

World champions Ginn and Duncan Free yesterday confirmed their status as the sport’s best international crew by having the “row of our lives” to dominate the men’s pair field at the Beijing Games with next-to-no rowing preparation.

Ginn, who was famously forced to miss the Sydney Olympics with a back injury, was struggling to get through this regatta after a flare-up of another back problem.

But having taken pain-killers to control the pain and sciatica down his legs, the pair rowed a perfectly-controlled race to easily chase down Canada to win by a length, with New Zealand third.

“It was a very big day, just to see the other races unfold and afterwards in particular - it really nailed home the victory for us,” Drew said.

“After the week we’ve had and three years of preparation and the emotions that have gone into it, it was a really nice way to cap it all off.”

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing.

“With 300 metres to go the legs were almost failing at that stage,” he said.

“We did all the work to get ahead of the Canadians and with just a bit to go it was like ‘let’s not stuff this up’.

“After the heat I was getting quite bad nerve irritation in my back and all those memories of Sydney came flooding back. I felt I could get through the two races but I just didn’t know how much I could risk between the races.

“We effectively spent all the time between races out of the boat.”

Drew said much of his and Duncan’s inspiration came from their children.

“We had a huge emotional high at the semi-final, almost using the kids as inspiration. The height of it was handing the photo of our kids to the coach who said to stick the photos inside the boat on the rigger.”

Drew is assessing his future in the sport, but was yet to decide whether it was time to hang up his oars.

“I have no idea, I’d love to go on but I’d also love to retire. That is the mixed emotion I am feeling right now. I’ll let the dust settle and see what decision needs to be made,” he said.

Cameron was part of the men’s four, who took a brave silver medal behind hot favourites Great Britain.

Britain’s flagship crew had to wait until the final few hundred metres to edge ahead of James Marburg, Francis Hegerty, Matt Ryan and Cameron, to seize the gold medal.

Speaking to The Star from Beijing, Cameron’s mother, Chris, said the post-medal celebrations had been just fantastic.

“We had a family gathering and it was a really joyful occasion,” she said.

“We had to wait for about five hours for the boys to get through the drug testing procedure. Later we went to a Rowing Australia party, which was a great occasion. There were a few hundred people there.

“The rowing wins have really lifted the profile of the sport.”

Cameron told reporters in Beijing that the crew had given its all.

“We had a crack, that was the race plan, to put ourselves in the race and not die wondering,” he said.

“We wanted to put it out there and give them a challenge.”

Another South Gippslander Belinda Snell, from Mirboo North, has been doing great things in the Opals Australian women’s basketball team. Belinda is the second highest scorer for the Opals behind Lauren Jackson.

Doctor crisis hits ’Gatha

Doctors are struggling to provide an after-hours service to the Leongatha Hospital, and may be forced to give it up at the start of next year.

Korumburra will also be affected.

The exhausted doctors from Leongatha Healthcare sent a letter to hospital CEO Gary Templeton recently, spelling out their concerns.

The letter, seen by The Star, said that with the imminent departure of Dr Kola Orundami and Dr Chris Perry – two long-term doctors – Leongatha Healthcare’s doctor shortage would become “extreme”. Penned by Dr Hugh Chisholm, the letter also said it remained a struggle to find replacements.

“At this stage we have none. It will be difficult to run our normal clinics but even more difficult to provide a full seven day a week after hours service to the hospital,” it said.

“We are giving you notice now, so that together we can find some possible solutions before next year, so that we can prevent a repeat of what happened at Wonthaggi when their doctors stopped providing an after-hours service.”

Many younger doctors are unwilling to work the long hours demanded by rural practices and Leongatha, like many other country towns, is struggling to retain doctors in the long term.

Burnout is a major issue, with many leaving because they cannot cope with the heavy workload.

“When Dr Perry leaves at the end of the year we will have six, maybe seven, doctors providing the after hours service which means doing more than one night a week, especially when doctors are on leave,” the letter said.

“This is not an acceptable workload and will result in doctor stress and burnout and will make it harder to attract and retain doctors. We have lost a number of excellent doctors over the years because of the stress of having to do after-hours work.”

Mr Templeton said the hospital had a “responsibility to provide a public health service.

“We will find a way to do that,” he said.

“It’s not for me to comment at the moment, and we can’t yet say how we will address a problem that will not occur until next year. The hospital board needs time to have some correspondence.”

Mr Templeton said he would work on the problem in consultation with the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the hospital board would have a better idea of its response in the next couple of weeks.

He remained optimistic, saying that Leongatha Healthcare may well recruit enough doctors in the meantime.

“The letter didn’t say that we couldn’t do it, but to flag the fact that we have experienced doctors replaced by junior doctors, and others who are unwilling to work after hours,” clinic partner Tim Linton said.

“Our intent was to start communication to see if there are any other ways to ensure after hours cover if we do run short. We have weeks like one coming up where I am first on call twice in four nights as well as doing a full working week and Saturday morning.

“We’re concerned that our skills are not as sharp if we are up for a large part of the night and have to keep working through the day as well. If this sort of week becomes the norm, we’ll have to look carefully at what else we can do.”

One option being explored is the appointment of a nurse to help with some of the after-hours duties at the hospital.

Neither are the doctors willing to continue shoring up the after-hours service in Korumburra.

“In the past when it has been hard to get doctors to do after hours, we have shared with Korumburra, so that we would only do alternating weekends and patients would have to travel to Leongatha one weekend and Korumburra the next,” Dr Linton said.

“It didn’t work – our records were a problem, we had people from Loch and were generally too busy to cope well anyway.

“The hospital is keen for us to do that for their own political reasons, but we have said that we are busy enough without Korumburra’s patients as well.”

Dr Linton’s concerns were outlined in the letter too.

“We do not believe that sharing after-hours with Korumburra is an adequate solution. If we had to treat all the Korumburra patients as well, the workload would be increased significantly and would be too much for one doctor, especially for our more inexperienced registrars. Having two doctors share a weekend just increases the frequency of weekends worked,” it stated.