Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Charles Darwin University Vice Chancellor Scott Bowman tells of the University efforts to train frontline healthcare workers here in the Territory

Transcript

Charles Darwin University Vice Chancellor Scott Bowman tells of the University efforts to train frontline healthcare workers here in the Territory · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now Charlestown University is mensi's School of Medicine was established
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: at the beginning of this year, set to offer postgraduate
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: programs in an effort to train frontline healthcare workers right
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: here in the Northern Territory. Currently there are territorians well,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: unfortunately heading off to programs such as the Flinders Medical
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: School in Adelaide, taking potential workforce away, sometimes forever and
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: leaving our frontline deplete it. Additionally, we know that a
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: new aged care training center it opened at CDU's Casharina campus,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: expanding the territory's locally grown frontline workforce. Now joining me
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: on the line right now is CDU Vice Chancellor Scott Bowman.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Good morning to you.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: Scott, Hi KB.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Lovely to have you on the show.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I understand that you have recently been in Canberra advocating
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for funding for training here in the Northern Territory.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit more about what you were
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: doing in Canberra.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, So I was down in the map House
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: talking to people, getting them, trying to get them on
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: side about a medical school for the NT, the NT's
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: own medical school, and I've got to say we've got
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: a very very sympathetic hearing from both sides of politics.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: I think I think several politicians are starting to see,
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: you know, this is the right thing to do. You know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: how can you have for a territory that has no
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: commonwealth funded medical praiss the only one in Australia. So yeah,
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: it was a good trip.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So what is the status at the moment of the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: of the School of Medicine, the Men's School of Medicine.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, look, we just really wanted to get on and
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: do something. So what we've done with launched the medical school.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: It's a little bit like a pub with no beer.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: It hasn't got any commonwealth funded supported places to train doctors.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: But what we can do in there is to train
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: already qualified doctors and other health care professions, so including
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: we're looking at the Masters of Aerial Aerial Retrieval and
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: obviously you know when you look at what Darwin does
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: in you know having that emergency international response with world
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: experts on that. So working with Lenda Tarists, we put
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: those programs into there. We're looking at short courses, so
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of courses for people that are already qualified,
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: and we're really going to ramp the number of those
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: up and then hopefully have our own medical students in
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: due court.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: And so how tough is it right now?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, have you been able to secure any federal
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: funding for these programs or what's the status of it
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: From that perspective.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: With let's say we've secured lots of nice words and
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: nice statements, we haven't secured any money yet. So what
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: we need is the funding for forty places scoring medical
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: places and then going up to sixty places. Remember that
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: we need in the territory sixty two interns, so newly
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: qualified doctors every year in the territory. Yeah, the Flinders
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: program at the moment produces twenty five and as sorry,
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: twenty four and has produced them for the last ten years,
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: with teelve of them coming from the territory from CDU.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: So that just doesn't measure up to what we need
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: in the territory. So we do need that funding commitment
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: to think. You know, hopefully we will get something leading
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: up to the election, but you know, we're not going
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: to go away because this is the right thing to do.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: So hopefully those you know, fluffy statements and kind words
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: eventuate into something concrete.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: When do you reckon, you'll know, are you waiting, like,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: will it be a commitment that if it's going to happen,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: it'll happen before the federal election. Oh?
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Look, I would hope. So, I mean, this is our
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: window of opportunity where you know, it is a chance
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: to put forward some really good ideas. This is a
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: big idea for the territory. So if it was an
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: election commitment, that would really be great. If there were
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: you know, some something done in the budget, that would
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: be great. Also, if we have to put an argument,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: we know we've got, you know, the strongest argument in
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Australia for these numbers, so we're happy to do that
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: as well.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: There Well not that on Friday it was announced that
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: there'd be a new training center for aged care at
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: the Casuarina campus. It's now complete. What does this mean
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: for territorians.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Well, we have got a state of the art facility
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: there for training age care workers. And it was really
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: quite interesting that you know, it's right next to our
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: pre school training area as well, so you've got this
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: area for age care, this area for young kids right
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: next to each other, which I think is quite nice
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: and showing that the university is across the agent but
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: obviously training people for age care is an incredibly important thing,
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: and you know, in partnership with the MTG, we've now
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: got a great facility here to dinner.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, And I think that, you know, if COVID
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: has taught us anything, it is that those aged care
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: workers are so incredibly important, and the more that we
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: can grow our own here in the territory, you would
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: think the better.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly right, and that's what we're trying to do
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: across the board in healthcare. So you'll have seen that
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: we've just announced the Masters in Audiology because we have
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: so many people with airing problems. We've got the Masters
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: of Physiotherapy OT, we're now really revamping our pharmacy course,
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: so you know, we're ramping all of that up with
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: you know, from master's degrees across two certificate threes and
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: fourth in training.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Scott. I know that that obviously students are starting to return.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I would suspect if they're not back already. For twenty
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: twenty two. COVID's been a big you know, it's had
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a big impact on so many different ways, whether you're
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: talking about tourism or hospitality or health right across the
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Northern Territory, but no doubt it's having the unimpact as
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: well as those students return.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. So what we're trying to
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: do with if you're like, we try to reduce the
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: viral load on campus, So anyone that can work at
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: home is working at home, but any training course, so
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: our vocational students back now, we're trying to run those
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: as normal and we've put in all sorts of procedures
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: to make that happen. So training is going on pretty
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: much unaffected. We're all gearing up for a couple of
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: weeks time when we have the degree students coming back
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: on campus, and at this point we're just saying we
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: are doing on campus delivery, so you know that. You know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: we did pivot to online, but this year we want
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: to get back on campus and do that in a
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: safe way. Probably the biggest impacted areas that international house,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: our accommodation. We've had some of our international students and
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: start to go down with the disease over there, all
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: doing well, healthwives, but obviously causes a massive disruption.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really does in so many different ways. And
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: how has it been in terms of returning some of
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: those international students back to the territory.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Oh look, that's gone really well. I think we're up
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: to getting in the round about one hundred and thirty
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: back actually on campus so that you can feel the
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: campus coming back to life. So that's gone really well.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: But we've got a big expansion plan in place for international,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: so overall we have about two thousand international. Really within
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: three years want to double that and then another two
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: years I want to double it again. So we really
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: are focused on on that.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Well, Scott, it sounds like it's going to be a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: busy year for you, no doubt about it. And I
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: guess it always is. But it sounds as though you've
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: got a lot planned.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: We've got so much plan and with so many you know,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: I said to people, you know, some people are saying
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: I'm feeling a bit tired, and I said, well that's fine,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: but we have got a big year. It's not a
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: time to be tired. We've got so many big projects.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I think you're going to be hearing a
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: lot about the UNI this year.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Oh well, good stuff, Scott Bowman, the Charles Doowen University
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Vice Chancellor.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: It's always great to catch up with you.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I appreciate your time this morning, and good to hear
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: what's happening out at the UNI.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, always good to talk to you. I was going
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: to wish you a happy New Year, and I thought, well,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: maybe it's too late to do that. What's the rule
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: on that.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Well I was doing that on my first week back
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: as well, which was about two weeks ago, so it
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was right at the end of January, and I felt
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a bit the same. I thought, is too far gone
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to be wishing people a happy new Year? Well, happy
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Valentine's for you too, mat I hope you have a
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: lovely day and no doubt we'll talk to you again soon.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Okay, thanks Scott, see you