The Albanese Government has invested $90 million into six new medical school programs in rural communities that will see an extra 160 medical students begin end-to-end rural medical training.

The investment will cover newly built medical classrooms as well as equipment and facilities and provide up to 80 new medical Commonwealth Supported Places. This will be matched by universities that will redirect a further 80 placements to the new rural programs.

The students will be coming from Deakin University (Victoria), University of Notre Dame (Western Australia), University of Queensland (Brisbane), University of Wollongong (New South Wales), University of Tasmania (Tasmania) and Flinders University (South Australia).

Rural healthcare, staff and facilities shortages are a major problem in Australia. This is a useful initiative from the Albanese Government to ensure support is being given to rural health training. Research also shows that doctors are more likely to stay practising in rural areas if they have done a placement and trained there. The economies of rural towns will also benefit from the new programs too, as there will be a welcome flow of more staff and students living within the towns.

A rural area in Australia that has a particularly hard time enticing and keeping a medical workforce is the Northern Territory (NT). Many doctors choose to fly in and fly out rather than making the NT their long-term home. To help combat this issue, the Albanese Government is granting $2.8 million to fund groundwork to open up a new medical school in the territory.