With no taxis and limited public transport, town's doctors revert to home visits

Beechworth doctors revert to home visits for patients after taxi service left town Wed 1 Jul 2026 at 6:32am In short: Doctors and patients in Beechworth are calling for more transport options to get to medical appointments. The town's only taxi service closed 18 months ago, and since then transport options have been limited. What's next? Indigo Shire is continuing to search for a replacement taxi service for the town. Not that long ago, life was good for 74-year-old Jodi Scholz who was running a small farm 10 minutes north of Beechworth. "It was idyllic," she said. "We had horses and a few cattle, and we managed them quite well." But then her partner developed health issues, and died two years ago. "I was left on my own with no family, trying to manage a 40-acre property," she said. Now, she lives in a nursing home where she once worked as a nurse. But prior to that, she had to rely on friends or volunteers to drive her into town for medical treatment. She had also depended on a local taxi service, until that business left town. "The gentleman who was running that [taxi service] got sick, and so for several years now there's been no service here,"Ms Scholz said. "The community car was very, very busy … so I had to rely on [carers] and one good friend that I have [who] drives from Wangaratta to Beechworth to pick me up and take me where I want to go." Concerns for patients in hot weather Dr Christie Rodda is Ms Scholz's GP and has worked in Beechworth for 16 years. Dr Rodda said the closure of the town's taxi service, along with limited public transport options, had left many patients without a reliable way to get to appointments. Concerned about Ms Scholz's chronic illness, especially during extreme weather, she would visit her patient at home. "Health is not just about seeing a doctor or an allied health professional. It's all the other things that go around it [like] transport or social supports,"Dr Rodda said. She said the Victorian Patient Transport Access Scheme was "grossly underfunded" and almost impossible to navigate. "How is it for a patient to try and navigate the complexity of a multi-layer health system funded by several different levels of government?" she said. Funding complexity across states Kirinari Community Services provides door-to-door transport in five states to help people, including patients who use wheelchairs, to visit their GP, hospital, or other health specialists. They also provide taxi vouchers. Chief Strategy Officer Paul Vaccarosaid the service makes 155,000 trips per year, but funding works differently in different states and is difficult to navigate. "We try to advocate for flexibility in those programs because it often takes more than one funding stream to make regional Australia work," he said. Mr Vaccaro said there was a reliance on volunteers at times. "It's pretty thin in some of the outlying towns … and often what we find is that transport can be hit and miss in terms of the need,"he said. "So when it's on demand and it might not be regular, then trying to find a casualised workforce to provide that transport service can be difficult." In north-east Victoria community transport providers such as Corryong Health and Indigo Home can also support eligible residents to access medical appointments and other essential services. Figures from the National Rural Health Alliance show that in 2025 about 18,400 people in remote and very remote Australia had no access to primary healthcare services within an hour's drive of their homes. "Those [regional] communities are not happy so it's put major stresses on top of the cost of living," chief executive Susi Tegan said. Taxi gap An Indigo Shire Council spokesperson said the council had not applied for funding through the Victorian Government's Flexible Local Transport Solutions Program but was exploring public transport options to support GP and health appointment visits. The council has also reached out to taxi companies in nearby Wangaratta and Wodonga to see if they could provide services to Beechworth. "To date they have indicated this is not possible," the spokesperson said. "Last year we supported a taxi operator from Albury to trial offering taxi services to the community. "However once the trial period finished they did not offer further support." A Victorian Department of Transport and Planning spokesperson said it welcomed the opportunity to discuss initiatives with stakeholders. "We continue to work closely with rural and regional councils, supporting a range of transport projects and initiatives to keep local communities connected to services," a department spokesperson said.