Village Medical centre

14/11/2025

🌏 World Diabetes Day 2025🌍

Today is World Diabetes Day, a reminder of the importance of early detection, prevention, and strong ongoing support for people living with Diabetes.

In Australia, Diabetes continues to be one of the fastest growing chronic conditions.

Early Screening Matters:
Regular health checks with your GP can detect Diabetes early, often before symptoms appear. Early diagnosis reduces the risk of long term complications.

Lifestyle Changes Have Power:
Small, achievable adjustments like balanced nutrition, increased activity, and reducing sedentary time remain the cornerstone of preventing Type 2 Diabetes.

Better Care, Better Outcomes:
For those living with Diabetes, coordinated care with your GP, Nurse, Podiatrist, Dietitian, and Pharmacist can significantly improve daily management and long term health.
Continuous glucose monitoring is more accessible than ever in 2025, and many patients may now be eligible under expanded Australian guidelines.

Whether you're managing Diabetes or looking to reduce your risk, our friendly team are here to support every step of the way.

If you’re due for a Diabetes check, or would like advice on prevention, please contact us to book an appointment.

13/11/2025

Booking Made Easier with HotDoc

For your convenience, several of our GPs now have appointments available via HotDoc:

Doctors at Village Medical on Buronga:
Dr. Oliver Wesa
Dr. Marian Hakim
Dr. Sumaira Hussain

Doctors at Village Medical on Helen
Dr. Hafiz Rizwan - only accepting HotDoc bookings for his regular patients at this time.

Please note: We do not take new patient bookings via HotDoc.

You can easily book your appointment by:
Downloading the HotDoc app on your smart device and entering your postcode
or
Visiting the HotDoc website:

Book an online appointment with your preferred healthcare provider all over Australia. See up to date availability and book instantly.

12/11/2025

Please be advised that following a large influx of new patient registrations, Dr Oliver Wesa has decided to again close his books to new patients, cut off being 5.30pm tonight.

This decision has been made to ensure he can continue to provide high quality care and continuity for his existing and newly registered patients.

All his current new patient bookings will be honoured, however, no further new registrations will be accepted for Dr Wesa at this time.

We sincerely apologise that this change has occurred so quickly, the volume of registrations we received exceeded our expectations.

Since reopening registrations for Dr Wesa and Dr Hakim on 6 November 2025, we have welcomed 225 new patient registrations.

Please note:

Dr Oliver Wesa’s books are now closed.

Dr Hakim is still accepting new patients.

Dr Pittappillil is also accepting new patients, you are welcome to register with him as your GP, and we will advise when his appointments become available for booking in the coming days.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation

12/11/2025

We’re excited to announce that Dr. Mathew Pittappillil will be consulting at Village Medical on Buronga from Monday, 19th January 2026.
We will announce soon when his books are open for appointments, please stay tuned.

Dr. Pittappillil brings with him over 48 years of experience in General Practice. After completing his medical degree, he worked across various community health organisations and hospitals, including seven years at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

His special interests include:
Men’s Health
Women’s Health
Children’s Health (including allergy management & immunisations)
Chronic disease management (Diabetes, Asthma, etc.)
Mental health & ongoing counselling

Dr. Pittappillil is passionate about working with his patients to help them achieve the best possible health outcomes.

He is also multilingual, fluent in English, Malayalam, Kannada, Hindi, and Tamil, allowing him to connect with patients from diverse backgrounds.

Outside of medicine, Dr. Pittappillil enjoys spending time with his family.

We are thrilled to have him join our Village Medical family, please join us in giving him a warm welcome.

10/11/2025

Since opening the books for Dr Marian Hakim and Dr Oliver Wesa on Thursday 6/11/25, we have welcomed 156 new patients.

This significant increase highlights the growing demand on our local GPs and has created a small backlog for our Reception team. Please rest assured that we are registering new patients as quickly as possible and allocating appointments as needed.

Please also be aware that this influx of patient registration enquiry has heavily impacted our phone lines and there may be a wait when you call. If you are unable to hold, please utilise our Voicemail service, leave message with your name and number and our friendly Reception team will return your call by close of business.

We truly appreciate your patience and understanding during this time. We will continue to monitor capacity closely and will notify our community should we reach a point where we are unable to accept further registrations.

Thank you for your ongoing support.

07/11/2025

Christmas is fast approaching 🎄⛄🎁

We would like to give our patients advance notice of our closure dates to ensure you have sufficient time to organise prescriptions and regular appointments during this period.

Village Medical Buronga
Closing: 1pm, Wednesday 24 December
Reopening: Monday 5 January

Village Medical on Helen
Closing: 5pm, Tuesday 23 December
Reopening: Monday 5 January

Village Medical on Jubilee
Will not be operational until the New Year, opening date to be confirmed.

Your GP may be on leave before these dates, please check with them or our friendly Reception team during or following your next appointment.

Please make sure to plan ahead and contact us early if you need any assistance before the holiday break

05/11/2025

Good Morning

After careful review and consideration, we're happy to announce that as of today, 6/11/25, Dr. Marian Hakim and Dr. Oliver Wesa at Village Medical on Buronga are now accepting new patients. Unfortunately, this does not include WorkCover.

To ensure the best care for all, patients must complete a registration form and be active in our system before an appointment can be scheduled. You can complete this form at either of our clinics or request it via email.

Please note, we’ll be closely monitoring the number of registrations, and may close their books again if our workload becomes too great.

We look forward to welcoming new faces into our clinic space.

For more information or to request a registration form, please contact our friendly Reception team today.

31/10/2025

Why Village Medical Will Not Be Bulk Billing Every Appointment as of Nov 1

You may have seen in the media that the government has stated, "All you need to access healthcare is a Medicare card."

At Village Medical, we are committed to providing quality care tailored to meet the specific needs of our local community. Our focus is on delivering comprehensive consultations, giving each patient ample time to discuss their health concerns and receive the attention they deserve.

In order to maintain this standard of care while ensuring the financial sustainability of the practice, we have chosen to continue to operate as a mixed billing practice.

We are proud to bulk bill specific groups of patients, including:

Pensioners
Health Care Card holders
Children under 16
DVA Gold Card holders

For all other patients, a gap fee will continue to apply, or full fee if you do not hold a valid Medicare card.

Fees will also continue to apply for certain procedures and services, including:
Full body skin checks
Intramuscular vitamin boosters
Iron infusions
Holter monitors
Ambulatory BP monitors
Initial CBD consultations
Cortisone injections
Yellow fever vaccines
Ear suction
Cosmetic medicine
Private flu shots
Pre employment medicals
Heavy vehicle driver’s license assessments
Quotes can be obtained prior to booking for these services.

Just as the cost of living has increased, so too has the cost of sustaining a medical practice.

If we were to bulk bill every appointment, we would be forced to adopt a “fast medicine” approach, where rapid throughput sacrifices the quality of care. This is a compromise we are not willing to make.

This model of care does not align with the high standards of personalised service that we offer and that you deserve.

Therefore, despite recent government promises about universal bulk billing, we will not be switching to this model at Village Medical at this time. We will continue to reassess our approach over time and will notify you if there are any changes in the future.

We understand that healthcare costs can be a concern, and we encourage you to continue engaging with your local Members of Parliament about how this affects you.

Thank you for your understanding and ongoing support.

27/10/2025

All systems are now operational.
We thank you for your patience and understanding.

27/10/2025

At approx 11.45am this morning, we have experienced a server outage, this has also unfortunately impacted our phone lines.
Our IT team are currently working hard to rectify this issue.
We will advise as soon as it is resolved. We apologise for the inconvenience.

21/10/2025

Good Morning

Please be advised that Village Medical on Helen, 33 Helen Street will be closed on Friday 24th of October.

All incoming calls will be diverted to our Buronga Avenue site.

We apologise for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

20/10/2025

COMING SOON......

We’re excited to share that Village Medical on Jubilee, our third clinic site, is set to open early next year.

Located at 166 Jubilee Highway West, Mount Gambier
(conveniently located right next door to Chemist King Pharmacy)

Our brand new, purpose built clinic space will accommodate:
Up to 4 GPs
2 nurses
On site Clinical Labs Pathology collection centre

Building completion: Early December 2025
Opening planned: Early February 2026

As the opening draws nearer, we’ll be sharing updates on the GPs who will be practising from this location and will contact any patients whose GP may be moving to the new site.

Clinic hours: Monday to Friday (exact opening hours to be confirmed closer to launch)

Please note that, despite the new space, our books will remain closed for now. Once we are operational, have welcomed new GP's and are able to assess our patient load, we’ll review this position.

We do not currently have a waiting list, but any updates or announcements regarding opening our books will be shared on our social media pages and in our clinics.

We’re incredibly excited to expand our services and continue providing quality care to our community. Thank you all for your ongoing support, we can’t wait to welcome you to Village Medical on Jubilee soon.