STEVE PRICE:
I note today a story in the Daily Telegraph, Clare Armstrong, suggesting that from 1 January next year the Government will incentivise graduates, medical graduates, nurse graduates, to start working outside the metro area which is a great idea. Doctors who move to remote areas, like Walgett, or Bourke or Nyngan, would get their debt, their student debt, paid off if they stayed for at least half as many years as their degree took to complete. It's a good idea - will it work? Dr David Gillespie is the Regional Health Minister, a regular on this program. G’day, nice to talk to you again.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Great to be with you, Steve. And the answer is yes, I think it will shift the dial. It will make people at the critical time in their career, when they're choosing whether they're going to stay metro and become a subspecialist, or become an all-rounded GP specialist and to move to the country. Because, you know, we've got them at the right time when they're making those decisions.
STEVE PRICE:
A higher education loan would be- is quite expensive as well. I've got at least two children paying off their HECS that- what was HECS. So that's a real proper financial incentive.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
It is. Look, we already have baked into the system. Once you graduate from your med school, you then have to do a second degree to become a member of the college. And it's during that time when you're a registrar and when you finish, we are saying, if you do [indistinct] really remote ones, you get a 50 per cent time-off discount. But you've got to- you can't just be a flash in the pan visit for a month or two, and then, you know, go back to the city, you've got…
STEVE PRICE:
[Interrupts] So what sort of length of time are you looking at?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Well, in the inner regional areas, like the country towns, 25,000, 30,000, 15,000, 5000-sized towns, it's one for one. If you do a six-year degree and you stay for six years, your HECS or your HELP Debt is remitted. If you go those remote areas, if it's a six-year degree, it shrinks to three years. But it's not just for medicos, it's for nurse practitioners as well. If they've done their Master's degree and they're a nurse practitioner, and you're working in these remote areas, their HECS or HELP Debt for their nurse practitioner course is also remitted. You know, we don't have enough general practitioners, but it's doubly worse in country areas. We've got a retiring cohort of those old-fashioned doctors who also used to do anaesthetics, work in emergency, now do obstetrics. They're the specialist sort of GPs that we want in rural and regional Australia, and this is a big, targeted financial incentive for them to choose general practice, and, most importantly, rural and remote general practice.
STEVE PRICE:
And I think one of the smart things about this is you're targeting recent graduates.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Yes.
STEVE PRICE:
So you don't have that issue whereby you might be trying to convince, you know, a doctor in their early 30s who might have started a family to go or be married. Because, clearly, if you're going to move, particularly to the very remote parts of the state, you might have a bit of trouble convincing your new wife or your new husband to go with you, because there may not be work there for them.
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Yes, we do try and account for the partners of doctors. A lot of them have professional careers as well. But towns like Narrabi, Moree, or- I was down yesterday in Echuca, wonderful town with a big hospital. They're the sort of towns where we need these workforces. Along the Murray, the Murrumbidgee, over the mountains, you know, out from Orange, all that inner west. Same in South Australia and parts of WA. It's a universal problem no matter what state you're in. We need more of our skilled general practice doctors working in these regional towns. And it's really important that there's something tangible, visible, right at this critical time when there's a fork in the road.
STEVE PRICE:
[Interrupts] And this is not a promise, this is a policy. This will actually start from 1 January next year. What feedback have you had?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Yes. Look, very positive. We spoke to the Rural Doctors Association about this, we road tested it. I've spoken to young graduates who are registrars and are just about to start and either go down a subspecialty route and stay metro. But if they go for a wonderful lifestyle, a huge opportunity awaits them in…
… [inaudible] …
STEVE PRICE:
So it is positive? You're getting positive feedback?
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
No, very positive feedback. Nurse practitioners in those remote parts of Australia, they have welcomed this as well. But the general practice workforce that staffs country hospitals has been shrinking. You've seen the bush summit - these issues are front and centre of that. But it's the same in Victoria, same in Queensland. It's a universal problem. We need more of these skilled young doctors choosing general practice, working as a GP in a hospital, in a country town, in a community practice as well. And it's not a flash in the pan move. To get the benefit you've got to do at least half the time of your med degree. You can't just go there for six months and try and claim the benefit. No flash in the pans. Local doctors, not locums, living, working, and practicing in country Australia. Can't get a better career.
STEVE PRICE:
Great work, good stuff, hope it works well. Nice to talk to you again, talk soon
MINISTER GILLESPIE:
Okay, Steve. Thanks.
STEVE PRICE:
Regional Health Minister, Dr David Gillespie.