Following a call from ACEM Tasmania, Labor announced yesterday it will provide $2m to fund 50 doctors in emergency care training, under ACEM’s Emergency Medicine Certificate (EMC), Intermediate Emergency Medicine Training Program or Advanced Emergency Medicine Training Program (Associate Training Program; ATP).
ACEM’s EMC and ATP aim to expand and support the emergency care workforce by providing medical practitioners who are not specialised in emergency medicine with the skills and support to respond to emergency medicine situations. Labor’s investment would fund the training for 50 doctors and subsidise their wages during the period that they reduce their clinical work to undertake the training.
ACEM President Dr Stephen Gourley said funding the EMC and ATP would help people who live in regional, rural and remote (RRR) areas of Tasmania have better access to emergency care in their own communities, as many RRR areas lack sufficient FACEMs and FACEM trainees.
“Upskilling the regional, rural and remote workforce is a crucial step in addressing the healthcare distribution crisis in Tasmania and across Australia,” said Dr Gourley.
“This $2 million investment will have a big impact by upskilling more Tasmanian doctors and helping to support them while they’re studying. It will give more Tasmanians access to better, closer emergency healthcare in their own communities – whether they live in the city, the bush, or on the coast.”
“It is a cost-effective solution to improving health equity in regional areas, and a smart commitment by Tasmanian Labor.”
ACEM has also called on parties to commit to at least 200 more safely staffed inpatient hospital beds, and a 20% increase in full-time inpatient specialist and allied health workers in the public hospital system, to ensure 24/7 access to services.
The Australian Government must play its part in fixing Tasmania’s health system. ACEM has called for the federal government to fund the Emergency Medicine Education and Training (EMET) program and to ensure every Tasmanian ED has 24/7 security staff, integrated and appropriately trained to best support staff and patients.
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