Thirty additional GP training places will be funded in the Darling Downs, with financial incentives for graduates who remain in the region.
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Toowoomba and the Darling Downs will receive 30 additional GP training places under the Commonwealth's expanded rural generalist training program, responding to a primary care workforce shortage that has left an estimated 12,000 Darling Downs residents without a regular GP and contributing to above-average emergency department presentations at Toowoomba Hospital for conditions that should be managed in general practice.
Federal Health Minister Mark Butler said the Darling Downs training expansion was part of a national program adding 300 GP training places in regional and rural areas annually, with financial incentives for graduates who remain in regional practice for five or more years after completing their training. The Darling Downs incentive package includes practice infrastructure support, an HECS relief payment and a relocation allowance for overseas-trained doctors who join regional practices.
The University of Southern Queensland's medical school, which provides the academic component of GP training in the region, confirmed it would expand its regional supervisor network to support the additional training places, drawing on its established connections with GP practices in Toowoomba, Dalby, Warwick, and the satellite communities of the Darling Downs.
Toowoomba GP network president Dr Rebecca O'Brien welcomed the additional training places as the most meaningful intervention the Commonwealth could make in the short-to-medium term for primary care access in the region. "Training doctors here is the single best thing we can do. When people train here, they develop professional networks and community connections, and many of them stay," she said.
Toowoomba's medical community is also watching the outcome of the Commonwealth's GP practice funding reform review, which may affect the business economics of bulk billing rural practices.
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