Imagine being the only obstetrician within 300 kilometres _ on Gove Peninsula or in Kalgoorlie, one of a tiny practice in Alice Springs or Wagga, or a GP obstetrician trying to cover everything in a rural area.

Often they are on call all day and night without a break for months or years. They can stay where they know they are desperately needed, or succumb to burnout and leave.

Most of us don't even know about them but they deliver 30 per cent of the nation's babies, many of these being high-risk.

Enter SOLS, the Specialist Obstetrician Locum Scheme, the idea of Dr Pieter Mourik, a semi-retired obstetrician from Wodonga who began his practice there in 1971.

"I did my first 10 years there without a break,'' says Dr Mourik. ``You can do it when you're young, but the hours are unsafe for yourself and your patients. The number of practising rural obstetricians is critically short _ and their median age is nearly 60 _ but younger doctors are unlikely to replace them unless they are guaranteed some sort of real break.''

Dr Mourik worked in the first pilot program for SOLS which relieved obstetricians for much-needed holidays or study leave.

Over four years he has worked as a locum in Kalgoorlie, Bundaberg, Sale, Warrnambool, Wangaratta, Nambour, Rockingham and even in his old practice at Wodonga.

The scheme has been so successful that it has now been funded and extended to GP obstetricians and GP anaesthetists.

And Dr Mourik is able to continue practising, travel, meet new people and know that he is doing what he wished someone could have done for him during the `70s.

Dr Pallavi Desai came to Australia as a specialist gynaecologist employed to meet an unmet need in a rural or remote area.  Her husband is a doctor in Perth but she lives and works alone in the Kimberley. Based at Broome, she is on call without a break. Some GP obstetricians work alongside her but Dr Desai does all the gynaecology and high-risk or life-threatening obstetrics.

 As well as Broome she covers Derby, Cunnunurra and many smaller communities. "The College requires that I have supervision so once a month Dr Michael Price, a retired obstetrician, comes up from Albany to do this,'' she says.

"I am a long way from my family so I applied for a couple of weeks leave. I had my ticket booked but nobody came for handover. That's where the SOLS system kicked in. Dr Price came up and spent the Christmas period here while I went back to my family. It was a dream come true.''

There are now over 100 RANZCOG members registered to relieve rural Fellows. Locums and supervisors can cover for weekends so specialists like Dr Desai can attend postgraduate conferences.

She, and the other remote doctors now benefiting from SOLS no longer feel cut off from family and their colleagues; senior professionals have interesting opportunities for travel and work.

Their work and the SOLS scheme has been a huge success in preventing doctors from leaving rural practices which have become personally unsustainable.