Our story
Where it all started
Ochre was born in the bush. Our story began in 2002, when proceduralist GPs Dr Hamish Meldrum and Dr Ross Lamplugh worked in the quintessential NSW outback town of Bourke. Challenged by the need for quality locum doctors in rural Australia, Ross and Hamish established Australian Outback Locums, promoting the family-friendly, outback Australian lifestyle to like-minded and capable doctors.
Today, Ochre Health is a leading facilitator of healthcare to rural, regional and urban communities around Australia. We operate a network of over 65 medical centres and Urgent Care Clinics across five states and territories and we are a service provider to more than 450 independent doctors. We also work with hospitals and medical practices throughout Australia and New Zealand to source and place locum and permanent doctors across a wide range of specialties.
Improving healthcare across Australia’s disparate environments remains an enduring passion for Ross and Hamish, who have always based their approach on three simple principles:
- They only manage clinics they were happy to work in themselves.
- They only support doctors they would be happy to take their kids to.
- They try to exceed expectations in everything they do.
The Ochre Way
We are still a family-orientated business. Our management framework, The Ochre Way, translates our founding purpose into a strong set of values and promises to our key stakeholders – doctors, their patients and our people. We remain inspired by the challenges and beauty of the outback landscapes so aptly described by Dorothea Mackellar in My Country – but rather than brown, it’s “The wide ochre land for us!”.
A Medical Centre on the Moon
The story of Ochre Health’s first decade is the subject of a book by Graeme Brosnan entitled A Medical Centre on the Moon. As Ross and Hamish have influenced healthcare across Australia, so the country and its local communities have inevitably influenced the company. From Tasmania to Palm Island, Bourke to Lightning Ridge, and Canberra to the Kokoda Trail, the Ochre story is as diverse and eclectic as the places themselves. Copies of the book are available from Ochre Health’s Support Offices in Sydney and Hobart.
We are extremely proud of our history and the Ochre brand. Our distinctive ochre orange colour represents our origins in the rocks and dust of outback Australia, while the blue colour and the wave through the “O” reflect the importance of the water and the river systems on which all of those communities depend. To this day, we are proud to include “Ochre” in the names of all of our medical centres.
