Skin cancer clinic is shutting shop
ONE of the Darling Downs’ few bulk-billing skin cancer clinics will permanently close this month, following the sale of the building where it has operated for the past several years.
The Rockville clinic SunDoctors announced the closure via a text message to patients on Monday.
A spokeswoman from the Toowoomba SunDoctors clinic confirmed the closure and said the clinic’s final day for scheduled skin check appointments was Tuesday, April 13.
“We will also be carrying out scheduled incision appointments on Wednesday, April 14 and Thursday, April 15 and results, removals and sutures are happening on Friday, April 23,” she said.
“Between Thursday, April 15 and Friday, April 23 we will just be packing up the clinic and getting ready to shut down completely, but we will still available to take phone calls and print out pathology results for our patients.”
The spokeswoman said the building on Westland Street where the clinic was located had recently been sold and the new owners had made plans to put their own tenants in.
“Unfortunately we have not been given much notice, and at this stage SunDoctors’ management has decided it’s not really viable to move to another location which is a real shame because we are one of the very few bulk-billing skin cancer clinics in Toowoomba,” she said.
“The clinic did close down for a little when both of our doctors left in 2018-2019, but we’ve been reopened for the past two years, and it will be a shame not to be able to service the wider Toowoomba community anymore.”
The Chronicle understands Toowoomba’s SunDoctors clinic employs two receptionists and a nurse.
SunDoctors patient Marie Van Doorn said for the past three years said she had been attending the clinic for checkups every four months as a precautionary measure after she had several precancerous sunspots burnt off.
“I never paid anything as it was all bulk billed which was great,” she said.
“I previously went to another local skin specialist annually which was costing me $230 a visit as my health insurance did not cover skin appointments.
“Even after I got a bit back from Medicare, it was still becoming too costly for me to pay regularly, especially when I started having to go more often.
“Now I am searching for a new clinic to attend, but with very few bulk billing ones in the region I may have to go back to paying out of pocket again.”