Care, Career and the Coast

Why Central Coast is Tasmania's next health hotspot

Ask most people what draws them to Tasmania's Central Coast, and you will hear the usual suspects. Beaches. Space. A slower pace where things still get done. What you will not hear as often, but should, is healthcare. And that is starting to change.

Pharmacist Joe O’Malley, well known locally as a runner and open water swimmer, owns and operates Complete Care Pharmacy Penguin. Behind the counter, he has watched a shift play out that says a great deal about where this region is headed, not just as a place to live, but as a place to build a health career.

A Region Living Longer Needs More Health Hands on Deck

The numbers tell a story. Central Coasters are living longer and staying active later in life, and the population reflects it. More residents means more appointments, prescriptions and chronic disease management, and more of the common and less common care that keeps people well. It also means the region needs more people to deliver that care.

For health and allied health professionals, that’s no warning, it is an open door. Strong, consistent demand means secure careers, and a workforce still growing means room to lead early, rather than waiting years for a senior role to open up. Central Coast is not a market waiting to be discovered; it is one actively asking to be filled.

A Pharmacy That Outgrew the Word “Pharmacy”

The Pharmacy has served the Penguin community for more than 100 years. For most of that time it looked like a fairly traditional pharmacy. Not anymore.

Private consultation pods. Drive-through prescription collection. A daily Quiet Hour for patients who need a calmer space. Compounded medications to order, vaccinations, wound care and NDIS support. It’s become closer to a healthcare hub than a dispensary, and the driving force behind that shift has views on where the region is heading.

Joe also owns Westside Pharmacy in West Ulverstone and has been Branch President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (Tas) since 2024. He sits on the board of Pharmaceutical Defence Limited, which protects pharmacists nationally, and has spent years advocating for an expanded scope of practice for community pharmacists, from treating minor conditions like ear infections through to prescribing hormonal contraception.

Joe’s work was recognised with the “Here for Good” Award at the Independent Pharmacies Australia Member Summit, a nod to the hands-on, local care around which he’s built his career.

It is that combination, a working pharmacist also shaping state-wide policy, that makes his read on the region worth paying attention to.

Care Without the Long Drive

Joe’s standout addition at Penguin Pharmacy is an on-site Nurse Practitioner, available face-to-face and by telehealth, who can assess, treat and, where appropriate, prescribe medication for everyday and minor acute conditions without a GP appointment. Pharmacists and the Nurse Practitioner work side by side, easing pressure on general practice and the regional hospital system.

For patients, that means less waiting and less travel. For a Nurse Practitioner, it means a role that is genuinely integrated into primary care from day one, not added as an afterthought. Penguin’s population of 5,419 is served by two GP clinics and an aged care home run by Respect. Joe is the first to say that in a growing town popular with older people, there’s never enough care to go around.

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

In a town like Penguin, everyone knows their pharmacist. Ask a local and they won’t talk about “their pharmacy provider.” They talk about the team by name: Joe, Alex and their team, people who remember a patient’s usual order and know a quick question from one that needs a private word. That familiarity is a genuine point of difference: community pharmacists consistently rank among the most trusted professionals in the country, trust earned privately, face to face, over years, not built through a call centre.

That familiarity does not stop at the counter. The local GP, Nurse Practitioner, pharmacist and allied health professionals, physiotherapists, podiatrists and clinicians, know each other by name. that web of relationships turns individual appointments into real continuity of care. For health professionals weighing up where to work, that is worth pausing on: a career on Central Coast means becoming part of a health services community rather than rotating through one, with a level of service and respect that goes well beyond the job description, on offer right across the region, not just in Penguin.

"One of the things I value most about working in Ulverstone is the strong sense of teamwork. I work closely with other GPs, nurses and allied health professionals. Our healthcare community is relatively close-knit, so it is easier to develop strong professional relationships and support each other. This sense of connection has made me feel that I am part of a team, and it’s so much more rewarding than working alone. A collaborative health service means a better level of service across our community and that is so important." – Dr Madu Wickramasinghe, Victoria St Clinic

Training the Next Generation, Locally

There is a well-worn pattern in regional health workforce planning: train people locally, watch them leave for bigger centres, then wonder why the workforce gap never closes. Joe O’Malley is working against that pattern on purpose.

When we asked Professor Lizzi Shires, Director of UTAS Rural Clinical School, about workforce retention, she said: “Local, end-to-end training on the North West Coast plays a critical role in building and retaining a sustainable rural health workforce.”

Joe O’Malley’s pharmacies provide hands-on training for intern and student pharmacists, with real experience in clinical services and collaborative care rather than dispensing alone. That pipeline connects directly to the University of Tasmania’s Rural Clinical School in Burnie. With medical students and doctors exposed to work in the pharmacies from the start of their training, they experience truly integrated primary care alongside community pharmacy and Nurse Practitioner services.

We also asked the Professor about students training at pharmacies like Joe’s, she said: “Giving students real placements and mentorship that build connections with local communities make it far more likely that graduates return to work rurally. Early experience with collaborative practice promotes effective communication, mutual respect, and a better understanding of referral pathways, preparing future doctors to work as part of integrated healthcare teams that improve patient outcomes, particularly in rural and primary care settings.”

Close working relationships with local GPs round out the picture: when pharmacy, Nurse Practitioner and general practice are already talking to each other, a student is part of that joined-up care in action, rather than just reading about it.

The Opportunity Behind the Opportunity

Put the two threads together and the picture is clear. Our older population is driving sustained demand for health and allied health services, and a local training pipeline is hard at work, building the workforce to meet it.

"The need for consistent, holistic, collaborative care is here now. Our doctors, specialists and allied health professionals working together are what will let older residents live happier, healthier lives at home for longer. The better we care for people locally, the less they will need a hospital bed." – Joe O’Malley

That is the opening for health professionals and health businesses considering their next move: not competing for scraps in an oversaturated city market but helping meet a need that is only going to grow, in a region that already knows how to make collaborative, community-based care work.

Penguin and the wider Central Coast offer the lifestyle end without argument: beaches, community, room to breathe. What Joe’s work shows, is that the career end stacks up just as well, and for anyone in health or allied health weighing up where to build a practice, Central Coast is worth a much closer look.