Member for Coffs Harbour Gurmesh Singh has welcomed the commencement of 24 medical graduate interns at Coffs Harbour Health Campus this week.
Mr Singh said that a record intake of almost 1,100 medical graduate interns will start work in NSW public hospitals this week – more than any other state or territory in Australia.
“I want to extend a warm welcome to the class of 2023 and thank them for choosing a rewarding career in health. Each of these new starters will play an important role in keeping the people of the Coffs Coast safe and healthy for years to come,” Mr Singh said.
“These new medical graduate interns will also provide a major boost to their new colleagues – our dedicated health staff across the region who have performed remarkably during a very challenging few years.”
Minister for Regional Health Bronnie Taylor said the new medical graduates will be welcomed with open arms to our rural and regional communities, with almost one third or 396 of the positions in the bush.
“The NSW Nationals and Liberals in Government are committed to strengthening our regional health workforce, and ensuring the people of rural and regional NSW continue to have access to the high quality healthcare they need and deserve,” Mrs Taylor said.
“Interns seeking to complete their internship in our regions were able to apply through the Rural Preferential Recruitment pathway and, this year, 176 Rural Preferential intern positions were available – an increase of 13 positions from 2022.”
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.
The new doctors starting their internship 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. They also rotate across different specialties during the intern year, including surgery, medicine and emergency medicine.
The NSW Government is investing a record $33 billion in health as part of the 2022-23 NSW Budget.
The NSW Government has also announced the largest workforce boost in the nation’s history with a $4.5 billion investment over four years for 10,148 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff to hospitals and health services across NSW.
