Out of medication and without a doctor — her former physician had left Hawthorn Medical Associates three months earlier — Fairhaven resident Noelle Aubin was given a 60-day prescription and sent on her way. If she couldn’t find a new doctor before it ran out, she says the practice told her, she could get refills at urgent care or the emergency department. Finding a new primary care doctor has been easier said than done. Aubin has been trying to do so since November 2025, to no avail. None of the providers Hawthorn suggested are near Aubin, and even if she were willing to make the trip, they couldn’t get her in until August. When she called Southcoast Health, she said she was told that no doctors were available and was placed on a waitlist. “I’ve been calling around and practically begging my friends and family to ask their doctors to take me in,” Aubin told The Light in an email. “These large corporations are not focusing on primary care — they are focusing on finding doctors who can make the corporation more and more money.”Aubin is among 30% of Massachusetts residents who have had difficulty accessing primary care, according to a 2025 report from the Center for Health Information and Analysis.