About Us

Ochre Health Group began in 2002 when two practicing General Practitioners decided to take action to attract locums to rural towns.

At the time, Drs Ross Lamplugh (MBBS Melbourne) a GP Anaesthetist and Hamish Meldrum (MBChB Otago) a GP Obstetrician, were solo GPs in the rural township of Bourke in New South Wales. For a number of years the duo provided on-call Visiting Medical Officer services at the Bourke Hospital and procedural cover in Obstetrics and Anaesthetics.

Both doctors found that working in Bourke as procedural GPs was a fantastic opportunity to practice medicine within a supportive community environment. For them it was a privilege to experience the real Australian outback and practice as a true medical generalist. However, there were a number of challenges to be faced– including difficulty sourcing locums, delays in getting paid for hospital work, succession planning and the ever-increasing red tape. ??To overcome these challenges in 2002 Dr Lamplugh and Dr Meldrum formed Australian Outback Locums. They believed that by better servicing the social, emotional, physical and financial needs of locum doctors and providing a wider variety of job opportunities in rural locations these doctors would want to stay in rural communities – and it worked!

Later in 2002, Australian Outback Locums extended its focus to solving the chronic medical staffing problems in Brewarrina, a community of 1,200 people located 95 km east of Bourke. This small rural community had suffered many gaps in staffing, with 22 locums over a two-year period. Australian Outback Locums had almost immediate success in recruiting two doctors to a town that had previously operated with one doctor at best. In 2003 Australian Outback Locums was awarded a tender to provide Visiting Medical Officer services in Bourke and the New South Wales community of Boggabri. Again the medical staffing of these towns grew under the company's management.

In 2006, Australian Outback Locums was renamed the Ochre Health Group. Ochre stands for Outback Coastal Health and REcruitment. Ochre is a pigment widely found in Australia and ranges from yellow to red, and is the colour of the soil. The Ochre Health Group owns three companies that operate as separate and complementary business units.

The three companies are as follows:

Ochre Health

Ochre Health manages hospital service contracts and medical centres. Ochre Health has service contracts secured on a competitive tender basis in seven locations to provide services in New South Wales. It has offices in Sydney (clinical services), Ulverstone (business development and consultation), and Hobart (finance and payroll).

Australian Coastal Health

Australian Coastal Health operates a health centre located in Tea Gardens, NSW from which General Practitioners and other health professional manage their own practices.

Ochre Recruitment

Ochre Recruitment is a medical recruitment agency for both permanent and locum medical jobs. Ochre Recruitment has offices in Australia and New Zealand.