Man, I love my doctor.

Seriously.

I adore her.

She has seen me through some of the biggest medical challenges in my life, she’s helped me usher in three children and let’s face it, she’s seen parts of me my husband wouldn’t be brave enough to even try and spell.

Through everything, no matter how uncomfortable and slightly mortifying, her professionalism and bedside manner is one of calm reassurance, followed closely by the sentence: “Relax Ali, I’ve seen it all before.”

To say I trust her implicitly is like saying the stethoscope is always too cold, but one small problem has started to creep into our relationship: I can never see her.

She’s becoming the INXS of my pre-teen years: someone I was desperate to see work, but with no tickets, they remained relegated to an image I held in my mind or on the posters stuck to my bedroom wall.

I have been battling a sore throat on and off and after about a gazillion negative RATs I finally bit the bullet and tried to see her.

I rang the practice where she works and the next available of appointment was on Thursday, the second of March.

As this phone call was in the middle of January I thought the lovely receptionist must have made a mistake so I clarified… “Oh you mean Thursday, the second of February?’

(Does anyone else mix up appointments between Feb and March because the 28-day month means days and dates are the same?  But I digress…)

“No, it’s March. That’s the first appointment available.”

Riiiiggggghhhhhttttt.

Well, March it is then and in the meantime, I gave myself another few days to try to get over it.

When things didn’t get better I thought I’d try another GP but after ringing around to a few who had been recommended, I was told repeatedly that doctor such and such wasn’t taking on any new patients.

Finally, I found one who was filling in at a practice and willing to see me. He took a thorough, if rather confusing, medical history, but his subsequent diagnosis still had me scratching my head.

Apparently, my sore throat was because I was grinding my teeth at night.

Riiiiggggggghhhhhhttttt.

The only problem was, I had never done it before, was relatively stress-free and it didn’t explain why my throat got worse after a night of talking or coaching a session of netball with one of my kid’s teams.

So, then I thought I’d try one of these online medical places that can push out a script as needed.

Now to be clear, if necessary, I will, of course, take medicine as prescribed, but I have always had an aversion to taking pills unnecessarily, to the point where if I’m heading to bed with a headache, I’d rather let sleep do its thing than use something out of a foil packet.

But my reasoning was if I could find something – anything – to knock this on the head and give me some relief, then I would.

Sure enough, it was pretty easy to get an antibiotic script and so off I trotted to the pharmacy and set about medicating the crap out of my throat.

Result!

For a while… but it’s back and so after all of this, after all of the extra pressure I have put on the system and my own personal cost, I’m still having the same issue.

Oh, and today’s appointment?

I had to cancel that as I had a work commitment scheduled that was a non-negotiable, which I couldn’t possibly have predicted back in January when I made my booking.

Don’t worry though, I’m not a complete idiot and have secured her next available and so will be seeing my doctor in April.

Yes, April.

So my question is: what do you do?

My GP, like so many others, has developed and nurtured people through their trials and tribulations, and as such, has a list of people that book in for regular appointments.

That is a measure of how valued she is and the difference she makes to people’s lives.

But what do you do, if you get sick and need to see someone straight away?

The situation is only going to get worse.

This year was the sixth in a row we couldn’t even fill the number of training places available to those wanting to become a GP.

The Australian Medical Association reports that the demand for GP services has increased by 58 per cent between 2009 and 2019 and, at the same time, if nothing changes we’ll be short more than 10,600 doctors by 2031.

There’s been a lot of discussion around the low level of the Medicare rebate lessening incentives and the current charging levels leading to perverse incentive of churning people out instead of spending time solving more problems per consult (as opposed to someone then booking in for five consults).

Throw in the inverse relationship of fewer doctors having to treat more patients needing more and more complex care, with the resulting pressure more walk away as they choose either scale back, move to a more controlled speciality or simply quit so they can look after their own mental and physical health.

There has clearly been a lack of nuanced understanding and support from successive governments and it doesn’t look like this tide is turning around any time soon.

Perhaps it’s me who needs to change my way of thinking and understand that the affection I have for my doctor will go the way of so many great loves in this world; unrequited.

Ali Clarke presents the breakfast show on Mix 102.3. She is a regular columnist for InDaily.