Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Katie spoke with Regional Health Minister David Gillespite about the Federal Government proposal to entice doctors and nurse practitioners to regional and remote areas of Australia

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Katie spoke with Regional Health Minister David Gillespite about the Federal Government proposal to entice doctors and nurse practitioners to regional and remote areas of Australia · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: It is just ten minutes after ten o'clock. Now, if
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  Speaker 1: you listen to the show fairly regularly, you'll know that
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  Speaker 1: we've spoken at length over the last few months about
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  Speaker 1: some of the shortages that we've seen when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to doctors and nurses here in the Northern Territory. Now,
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  Speaker 1: the federal government's got a proposal which would entice doctors
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  Speaker 1: and nurse practitioners to regional and remote areas of Australia.
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  Speaker 1: So from January next year, the federal government's looking to
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  Speaker 1: wipe the university debt of doctors or nurse practitioners under
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  Speaker 1: a few conditions. Now joining me on the show to
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  Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about this is the
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  Speaker 1: Regional Health Minister, David Gillespie. Good morning to you.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie. Please you wish you at the top end.
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  Speaker 1: Well, David, this sounds like a really interesting proposal. Can
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  Speaker 1: you talk us through exactly how it's going to work.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's basically a waiver of your hecks ld LINGO,
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  Speaker 2: or the help debt that you accumulate when you're studying
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  Speaker 2: for a medical degree or a nurse practitioner degree, and
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  Speaker 2: it's conditional on you. You have to have done three
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  Speaker 2: postgraduate years, so you can't be just to begin a
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  Speaker 2: baby doctor. You have to be either a senior registrar
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  Speaker 2: or becoming a fully fellow doctor. And if you've done
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  Speaker 2: a six year degree, you can by working six years
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  Speaker 2: get the whole fee waves But which is really interesting
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  Speaker 2: for Northern Territorians, it's more remote, so there's a fifty
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  Speaker 2: reduction on what is required. So if you're in what
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  Speaker 2: areas are called remote or very remote, you know, most
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  Speaker 2: of the Northern Territory is that outside Darwin. But the
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  Speaker 2: modified Mono system, if it's a six or a seven
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  Speaker 2: in a one to seven scale, you would only have
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  Speaker 2: to do three years instead of six years. But if
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  Speaker 2: you've done a four year degree, you would need to
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  Speaker 2: do two years. Can't just do it a fly and
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  Speaker 2: fly out job. You have to be doing twenty four
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  Speaker 2: hours a week, you know, every week, making a commitment
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  Speaker 2: to the regional rule and remote town or villages that
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  Speaker 2: you're working in, and you will get your help debt
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  Speaker 2: waived and nurse practitioners as well, not just medicaids.
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  Speaker 1: And so when you talk about you know about the
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  Speaker 1: different areas of the Northern Territory, I'm assuming that you know,
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  Speaker 1: somewhere like gun Bologna would be you know, I would
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  Speaker 1: be regarded as as remote. When you talk about a
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  Speaker 1: place like Darwin. Would that be considered regional still or
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  Speaker 1: would it be excluded?
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  Speaker 2: No, look, I'd have to look at it. It would.
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  Speaker 2: It's quite a big population, so it would be a
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  Speaker 2: two probably, And it kicks in when you go from
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  Speaker 2: three to seven. So towns less than fifty thousand people
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  Speaker 2: would be a three. A small country town, say twenty
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  Speaker 2: thousand people would be a four. Yep, five would be
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  Speaker 2: like more than five thousand, and then six is remote
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  Speaker 2: and seven is very remote. So I think Catherine is
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  Speaker 2: a six. So that gives you some indication. Darwin would
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  Speaker 2: be a two I expect or it's not big enough
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  Speaker 2: to be a one. That's big cities like towns Fall
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  Speaker 2: or cans or Sydney or Melbourne.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I suppose it's you know, it's a It seems
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  Speaker 1: like a really good idea in theory. I think a
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  Speaker 1: lot of you know, a lot of young UNI students
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  Speaker 1: or people starting out would think I'll do my time
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  Speaker 1: remote or in a regional location and then be able
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  Speaker 1: to wipe my hex steat. I suppose are we trying
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  Speaker 1: to look at enticing people from those major capital cities
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  Speaker 1: like Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, two places like the Northern Territory.
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  Speaker 2: We do we always do. We have already in the
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  Speaker 2: Medicare rebate system. If you are more remote, you get
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  Speaker 2: more practice incentives depending on what services you're doing, and
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  Speaker 2: we are trying to add to that as well in
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  Speaker 2: a separate piece of work, because we realize if you're
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  Speaker 2: a GP working in a remote area or in a
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  Speaker 2: country town where you work at the hospital as well
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  Speaker 2: and look after accident emergency and deliver babies or have
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  Speaker 2: to resuscitate people from say a car accident, that's different
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  Speaker 2: from sitting in suburbia or in a big city where
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  Speaker 2: there's teaching hospitals on every second corner and lots of
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  Speaker 2: specialists where you don't have to worry about that you
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  Speaker 2: know you're on call. It's a different work requirement and
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  Speaker 2: we want to reward people for that extra skill and responsibility,
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  Speaker 2: and we are encouraging general practitioners with those skills to
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  Speaker 2: stay in these country towns because the workforce for the
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  Speaker 2: hospital is the general practitioner, a nurse practitioner level workforces
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  Speaker 2: a city they can run without any GPS, so they've
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  Speaker 2: just got their own workforce. But in country it's different.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and then I guess it's even different again when
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  Speaker 1: you go really quite remote into some of our remote
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  Speaker 1: indigenous communities. But you know, particularly here in the likes
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  Speaker 1: of the Northern Territory, is there any worry you know
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  Speaker 1: that you might have doctors and nurse practitioners think, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I'd really like to do a stint in a remote
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  Speaker 1: place in the Northern Territory. But then you know they
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  Speaker 1: get there, they realize just how remote they are, and
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  Speaker 1: you know it can't sort of last the distance.
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  Speaker 2: Look, that may well happen, but as I said, you
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  Speaker 2: can't just do a fly in for a month or two.
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  Speaker 2: To qualify for it, you have to make a commitment
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  Speaker 2: at least twenty four hours a week for the year
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  Speaker 2: and a minimum of two years. And you can remit
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  Speaker 2: half or all of your hex step for your nursing
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  Speaker 2: masters or for your medical degree. And they're not all
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  Speaker 2: the same length. Some med degrees are a post grad
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  Speaker 2: degree and they take four years, some are five and
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  Speaker 2: some are six. And depending on where you are, if
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  Speaker 2: you're in the interregional areas, but in the country. It's
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  Speaker 2: one for one. You have to do six years to
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  Speaker 2: get a full six year rebate relief. If you did
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  Speaker 2: a four year degree, it to be four years. So
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  Speaker 2: that's the principle. And from the doctors and the reception
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  Speaker 2: that I've got, a lot of people think it will
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  Speaker 2: shift the dial. We don't have to wait for them
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  Speaker 2: to go through med school. They're registered early career doctors
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  Speaker 2: that were after and we want them to stay and
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  Speaker 2: play and raise their family and work as a highly
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  Speaker 2: skilled professional. You're well supported by country towns and communities
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  Speaker 2: love when they get a new doctor, and we are
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  Speaker 2: trying to gives them an incentive so that the sliding
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  Speaker 2: door moment when they think I've done my registrar job,
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  Speaker 2: I'll go back to the city now, but will cause
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  Speaker 2: them to say stop, oh okay, well I've got a partner,
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  Speaker 2: young family coming along. Maybe I'll stay here. I get
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  Speaker 2: rid of my hexstep and it will shift the dial.
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  Speaker 2: It won't move everyone nice, it will move us living
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  Speaker 2: an amount of people to make a big difference.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have any you know, do you have
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  Speaker 1: sort of any ambition when it comes to the number
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  Speaker 1: of doctors that you are hoping or the number of
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  Speaker 1: nurse practitioners that you are hoping hoping are going to
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  Speaker 1: move to those regional and remote areas. There must be
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  Speaker 1: quite a few positions I'm assuming that need to be
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  Speaker 1: filled right around Australia.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yes, yeah, depending on which state you're in. There
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  Speaker 2: is a deficit in the Northern Territory. Some people go
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  Speaker 2: there for a short stint or fly and fly out jobs,
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  Speaker 2: but they won't be the beneficiaries of this. It'll be
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  Speaker 2: the younger, early past registration young doctors who I think
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  Speaker 2: will see the benefit. It's not only is it a
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  Speaker 2: good financial deal, it's a good career deal because you'll
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  Speaker 2: get amazing experience working in country hospitals and country general practice.
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  Speaker 2: It's much more diverse and fascinating than it is when
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  Speaker 2: you're back in central civilization in a metro practice. People
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  Speaker 2: still get sick in the cities, not discounting the work
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  Speaker 2: that gps do in the cities, But if you're practicing
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  Speaker 2: in a country town, you've got so much more responsibility
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  Speaker 2: and you've got to have another level of skills because
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  Speaker 2: they all start off the same at med school and
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  Speaker 2: as a junior doctor. But then if you stop doing
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  Speaker 2: accent emergency and doing resuscitation or anesthetics your d skill.
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  Speaker 2: Whereas if you're working in a country town or a
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  Speaker 2: remote place in the Northern Church, you've got to be
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  Speaker 2: able to call on those skills. Maybe not every morning
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  Speaker 2: and afternoon, but it happens. Road crashes happen, heart attacks, sepsis,
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  Speaker 2: all those things. They can all happen, but you're when
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  Speaker 2: you're in a country town.
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  Speaker 1: I'll be really interested to see, you know, if for
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  Speaker 1: the Northern Territory it makes much of a difference come
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  Speaker 1: next year and whether we do see some of those
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  Speaker 1: young doctors or those those newly minted doctors and nurse
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  Speaker 1: practitioners heading to the territory places like Catherine Alice Springs,
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  Speaker 1: I'm assuming, and then our remote areas, whether you know,
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  Speaker 1: whether it does mean that people sort of head out
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  Speaker 1: to the regions and really sink their teeth into an
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  Speaker 1: interesting job.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, it will take a year or two to
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  Speaker 2: get the full benefit because a lot of people have
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  Speaker 2: planned what they're doing next year already. But we're making
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  Speaker 2: it available and I'm hoping it won't just entice people,
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  Speaker 2: it will keep people. Now because we do have a
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  Speaker 2: cohort that's there already and they might have been thinking, whyko,
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to go somewhere else, to Brisbane or you know,
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  Speaker 2: to Woomba or somewhere bigger center. But this will this
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  Speaker 2: will entice them to stay well.
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  Speaker 1: David Gillespie, the Minister for Regional Health, I really appreciate
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  Speaker 1: your time this morning. Thanks very much for having a
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  Speaker 1: chat with me.
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  Speaker 2: My pleasure, Katie.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you. We'll talk again soon.