Janelle Saffin MP, Dunoon and District Gazette

The Northern Rivers will benefit from a major boost to its local medical workforce – with 28 medical graduate interns starting work in local public hospitals this month.

Interns are medical graduates who have completed their medical degree and are required to complete a supervised year of practice in order to become independent practitioners.

Member for Lismore Janelle Saffin said the new doctors will be entering a training program with networked hospitals throughout the state, providing formal and on-the-job training.

“They receive two-year contracts to rotate between metropolitan, regional and rural hospitals to ensure the diversity of their experience,” Ms Saffin said.

The NSW Government is undertaking an ambitious plan to rebuild the State’s health workforce, including through:

• Implementing safe staffing levels of nurses and midwives beginning in our emergency departments;
• Abolishing the wages cap and delivering record pay increases for nurses, paramedics and other health workers as well as salary packaging;
• Beginning to roll out 500 additional paramedics in regional, rural and remote communities; and
• doubling the health worker study subsidies.

This article appeared in the Dunoon and District Gazette, January – February 2024.