Geoffrey Edelsten

Geoffrey Walter Edelsten (2 May 1943 – 11 June 2021) was an Australian businessman and former physician known for founding the health care company Allied Medical Group.

Edelsten was born in Carlton, an inner suburb of Melbourne, on 2 May 1943.

His parents, Hymie and Esther, established Linda Leigh, a lingerie retail chain.

His grandparents on both sides were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.

Edelsten attended Princes Hill Public School and, in 1960, matriculated at Mount Scopus Memorial College, Australia's first Jewish co-educational school.

In the 1960s, Edelsten owned a Melbourne-based record company, Hit Productions, which worked with music publishers Festival Records.

During the same period, his family owned the Edels record retail chain.

He went on to study at the University of Melbourne, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree in 1966.

In 1966, Edelsten was credited with co-writing the songs "I Can't Stop Loving You, Baby" and "A Woman Of Gradual Decline" for the group the Last Straws, whose singles were released on his short-lived Scope label.

Following his graduation in 1966, Edelsten practised as a resident medical officer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital before entering general practice.

As a general practitioner, he worked in remote rural regions of New South Wales and Queensland, including the towns of Wauchope, Aramac and Walgett, where he bought his first private practice.

He obtained a private pilot's licence in order to provide medical services to remote communities – often at no cost to patients when they could not afford to pay.

In 1967, Hit Productions signed the group Cam-Pact, whose debut single, "Something Easy"/"Michael", charted in Melbourne in early 1968.

Later in 1968, Edelsten co-produced the single "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.

In 1969, he and a colleague set up a new medical practice in the Sydney suburb of Coogee.

After training an assistant doctor to perform the work in Walgett, Edelsten devoted more time to the Sydney practice, which soon expanded to Liverpool.

In 1971, Edelsten and a colleague, Tom Wenkart, launched Preventicare, a Sydney-based company providing diagnostic tests and computerised history-taking for doctors throughout Australia, using new equipment from the United States which could quickly and cheaply process pathology specimens.

Preventicare quickly incurred debts, because some of its operations were economically unsound, and because of the slow payment of patients' accounts totalling far more than the company's debts.

In July 1971, the Equity Court appointed a provisional liquidator to act as a temporary business manager to put the company's financial affairs in order.

Later that year, the General Manager of Preventicare, Brian Wickens, reported that the organisation was on a sound financial footing.

By 1975 – and under the new name of Morlea Pathology Services – it recorded annual profits of $2.5 million to $3 million.

Macquarie Professional Services is the successor to Preventicare.

During this period, Edelsten and his colleagues established eight practices in the Sydney area, and performed obstetrics at three western Sydney hospitals.

After three years in Los Angeles, California, Edelsten returned to Australia in 1978 to resume his general practice, surgical and obstetric commitments.

Edelsten was a general practitioner whose unconventional clinics and luxurious lifestyle attracted media attention in the 1980s.

He owned mansions, helicopters, and a fleet of Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis with license plates such as Macho, Spunky and Sexy.

His multidisciplinary clinics – the forerunners of modern corporate medical practices – were open 24 hours, and were fitted with chandeliers, grand pianos, and mink-covered examination tables.

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 and mink-covered examination tables, 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.

Edelsten was the first private owner of a major Australian football team, the Sydney Swans, which he bought in 1985.

On 31 July 1985, Edelsten became the first private owner of a major Australian football team, the Sydney Swans.

A year later, Edelsten, on behalf of the Sydney Swans, tried to lure Essendon player Simon Madden with an offer of a three-year contract for a total of $550,000, although Madden chose to remain with Essendon for his entire career.

Madden said that he never regretted his decision.

Edelsten was struck off the medical registry in New South Wales in 1988 and later in Victoria.

In 1990, he was jailed for perverting the course of justice and soliciting Christopher Dale Flannery to assault a former patient.

In 2005, Edelsten and a business partner founded Allied Medical Group, which by 2010 administered 17 medical centres and employed around 250 general practitioners.

Edelsten was not, however, a shareholder or owner of the company.