Regional Medical School

The Hon. G.G. BROCK (Stuart) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister advise my constituents if there is any opportunity to provide the new four-year medical degree program that is currently in the Upper Spencer Gulf, similar to what is happening in Renmark and also Mount Gambier? With your leave, and that of the house, sir, I will explain a bit further.

Leave granted.

The Hon. G.G. BROCK: I am advised that since the new four-year program started in Renmark and also Mount Gambier, the program was overprescribed with participants and they had to turn medical students away, which would result in fewer graduates being able to train and serve in regional South Australia.

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:35): Thank you to the member for Stuart for his important question. It's a very good question because it is about how we can then train more doctors in South Australia, particularly in terms of regional areas.

The member refers to what is a very exciting initiative. Flinders University won a competitive program to be able to establish a new regional medical school in South Australia for the first time. This means that students undertaking their degrees to become doctors will not be undertaking that at Bedford Park or in the city, and at the end of it we ask them to go to the regions afterwards, or even doing bits of their degree in the regions, but undertaking the entire degree in regional areas.

Flinders University have had a longstanding relationship with the Riverland and the Limestone Coast areas of the state and the University of Adelaide Medical School have had a longstanding relationship with the Upper Spencer Gulf and Eyre Peninsula. Flinders University, being successful for that, are rolling it out in the areas of the state where they have had those ongoing relationships.

It was a very competitive process. Of course, the other medical school in South Australia did try to get access to that program as well. We did punch above our weight in terms of getting more places I think by far than our per capita share of that regional medical program, but we are always in the market for more. And the fact that I referred to in my previous answer, those capped places from the federal government, we are hoping under a newly-elected Albanese federal Labor government will be set to increase. Hopefully that gives the opportunity for South Australian universities to increase the number of doctors that they train here in South Australia.

The member refers to the program being oversubscribed. That is the case for every single medical degree program in Australia. They are very competitive to get into, they are capped places and medical students are trying to get into these places everywhere around the country. Of course, we know we are going to need more doctors in the future for our needs in the public health system, in GP practices, in private practices. With an ageing population there will be more doctors needed in the future. We are increasingly having to do more and more international recruitment, because we have not seen a big increase in those numbers in the past decade. That is about to change. We are hopeful to see those numbers increase.

I am hopeful that both Adelaide University and Flinders University will be able to see their numbers increase into the future. I will certainly help advocate to the federal government that that should be the case, and I am hopeful that we will see an increase in terms of regional medical training into the future as well.

Of course, the member's own electorate will be very well placed into the future as well because of the investment that we are making in Port Pirie, which the member helped advocate for and which was funded in the last budget. That is to provide that new training facility that we will be building at Port Pirie adjacent to the hospital, predominantly to help with the training of nurses and allied health professionals, but there is the potential that that clinical simulation unit could also be there in the future for use by medical students as well.

We think that there is a great opportunity for more South Australians to become doctors, to increase the number of training places that we have in South Australia. We are very excited about the work that Flinders University have just started in doing so, and we are hopeful that there will be more into the future.

The other component, of course, that I would add, is the postgraduate training pipeline as well. In your local area there have never been postgraduate medical placements and intern placements before. That has now changed. We now have those interns there for the first time in the Yorke and Northern Local Health Network, and that is a sign of hopefully good things to come.