The hubs, announced by the Assistant Minister for Health Dr David Gillespie last week, will aim to give medical students in the Macleay Valley greater opportunities to live, study and work closer to home.

Member for Cowper Luke Hartsuyker says the hub will help create the future medical workforce for the region.

“Kempsey is one of 26 regions across rural and regional areas that will benefit from the Federal Government’s $28.5 million investment in Regional Training Hubs over coming years,” Mr Hartsuyker said.

“The hubs are an essential component of the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline for Medicine, which is helping to get more doctors and health professionals into regional Australia.”

Mr Hartsuyker said the initiative would look to counter the trend of medical students having to move to cities to access training and education services.

“All too often, young medical students are forced to leave regional Australia to access the training opportunities necessary to progress professionally,” he said.  

“The initiative will coordinate more opportunities for medical students to stay in our region to complete their training.”

The Kempsey hub, to be operated by the University of New South Wales, will work with local health services to help move medical students through the training pipeline, enabling students to continue rural training through university into postgraduate medical training, and then working in regional and rural Australia.

“The government’s initiatives to support high quality rural placements for health students from across Australia will help ensure regional and rural communities have access to doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in the future.”

The initiative is part of the $54.4 million Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training program, which also includes the University Departments of Rural Health program.