The Musical Doctor
As we age, there is no doubt that we need more medical care. Having to attend a medical centre every two days during recent months my mind has turned to medical centres within the area.
When my wife and I moved to the Hills 40 years ago, there was a medical practice owned and operated by a well-known GP at the time. That GP went on to become a celebrity who amassed a great fortune. The medical practice was named, or known as a “Superclinic”, and was one of a chain of such clinics around the eastern states.
The GP that we mostly saw at that practice was Dr. Poulos who went on to start the Railway Street Medical Centre at Baulkham Hills. The owner and Principal at the “Superclinic” was one Dr. Geoffrey Edelsten, whom I only consulted once.
But going back to the 1960s, Geoffrey Edelsten’s working life was altogether different. Before becoming a GP, his life revolved around the music and record industry. He owned a record company in Melbourne called Hit Productions and a record label “Scope” which in 1967 had an association with the largest Australian owned record company of Festival Records.
In 1966 he also co-wrote songs for a few music groups and produced a record “Love Machine” for the studio group Pastoral Symphony, comprising Glenn Shorrock and his band the Twilights, Ronnie Charles of the Groop and various other musicians. His involvement with the recording industry may well have been influenced by his parents who owned “Edels” a nationwide chain of music stores.
Whilst his involvement in the music industry was brief, he is mostly remembered in the Hills district for his medical practice and flamboyant lifestyle. He did have a charitable side early in his medical career, as a GP he bought a medical practice at Walgett. He then obtained a private pilot’s licence enabling him to provide medical services to remote communities – often at no cost to patients when they could not afford to pay.
Following the establishment of Medicare by the Hawke government in February 1984, Edelsten began to run innovative and multi-disciplinary 24-hour medical centres which were the forerunners of modern corporate medical practices.
Decorated with chandeliers, white grand pianos, pink carpets, and gold coloured metal walls, the clinics attracted considerable media attention. Edelsten’s clinics were the first in Australia to bulk-bill patients to Medicare so that they incurred no direct cost. Within four months of opening, the first clinic was dealing with 2,000 patients every week. Edelsten eventually owned thirteen medical centres, in which approximately 20,000 patients consulted 200 doctors every week. The Baulkham Hills medical centre or Superclinic was such a clinic.
Another interest that Geoffrey Edelsten had was sport, particularly football. On 31 July 1985, Edelsten became the first private owner of a major Australian football team, the Sydney Swans. In July 1986, Edelsten tried to buy the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks rugby league team, but his offer was refused by the game’s administrators. Edelsten was a longterm benefactor of the Carlton Football Club and in March 2013 the club awarded him life membership.
Edelsten’s flamboyant lifestyle certainly attracted media attention by his marriages which were three in total. He owned mansions, helicopters, and a fleet of Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis with license plates such as Macho, Spunky and Sexy. In June 2012, thieves stole luxury cars belonging to Edelsten, worth more than $1.4 million. Among them was a Lamborghini Aventador worth approximately $800,000 – one of only a handful of Aventadors in Australia.
When Edelsten was living at Dural, he was involved in a spectacular single vehicle accident in which his car left the Windsor Road at Baulkham Hills at high speed and crashed into the front yard of a house and he was taken to hospital.
Geoffrey Edelsten was found dead at his Melbourne apartment on 11 June 2021, aged 78. He was buried in a small service at Springvale Cemetery on 16 June 2021.
