Prime Minister Julia Gillard today opened a new medical teaching and education centre in Darwin that will for the first time enable students to undertake an entire four-year medical degree in the Northern Territory.
The centre at Charles Darwin University will play a crucial role in providing training support for medical students during their first two years under the new Flinders University Northern Territory Medical Program.
This program is helping to train more Indigenous doctors to work in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory.
This will help address the severe medical workforce shortages and retention issues in the Northern Territory.
Up to 24 students began the course this year, with enrolments increasing to 40 per year in the future.
Improving the health workforce is a vital part of the Gillard Labor Government's national health reforms.
These reforms ensure doctors, nurses and allied health professionals are trained and equipped to work in areas where they are most needed.
The Government is making it easier for people to see a doctor when they need one and is training an extra 6,000 extra doctors over ten years.
We know that positive training experiences often influence where doctors choose to practice. That is why giving trainee doctors positive experiences in the Territory is so important.
Flinders and Charles Darwin Universities and the Australian and Northern Territory Governments have worked together on developing the Northern Territory Medical Program.
The Gillard Government is providing capital funding of $27.8 million over three years for the Flinders University NT Medical Program, $14 million of which will fund the new teaching and education centre.
An additional $6.6 million is being provided over four years from 2010-11 towards running costs.
Only 1.6 per cent of the national health workforce is made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
As at December last year, there were 153 Indigenous doctors working in Australia - up from 90 in 2001.
The new teaching and education centre will help train more Indigenous medical students in the Territory and encourage a significant number to stay and practise there when they finish their degree.
This will contribute to closing the health gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.