The Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) welcomes and commends the Federal Budget’s key investments into primary healthcare, with the focus on disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, however, effective primary healthcare workforce planning remains unaddressed, jeopardising the nation’s future health outcomes.

Healthcare workforce

“We strongly welcome the $4.5 million in funding into the single employer model trials to 10 additional sites for GP registrars in regional, rural and remote care, which will see increased retention and support for rural doctors and address longitudinal healthcare accessibility for rural patients,” said Tish Sivagnanan, AMSA President.

“The investments into primary healthcare delivered in this budget must be supported by cohesive long term workforce planning to ensure rural and remote Australians have improved quality and equitable access to healthcare,” said Ms Sivagnanan.

“AMSA continues to strongly advocate for immediate investment into increasing medical student interest in general practice and rural health as the single-most important solution to addressing the increasing shortage of doctors in general practice and rural health,” said Gabrielle Dewsbury, Vice President External of AMSA.

“Despite years of advocacy, we have not seen enough clear, tangible investment in this direction,” added Ms Dewsbury.

The $4.2 million funding to support James Cook University to deliver training via the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program is a key initial step in increasing medical student interest to practice rurally, with expanded opportunities to undertake long term and possibly longitudinal rural clinical placements.

AMSA is additionally relieved to see investment into improving mental health workforce and accessibility through the $91 million allocated to 500 post-graduate psychology places and 500 one-year internships for provisional psychologists.

“However, with the significant psychiatry deficits across Australia, and rural and remote areas only having three licensed psychiatric professionals per 100,000 people, the Government must fund quality education and better exposure to non-acute community psychiatry at a medical school level as an immediate measure to reverse this trend,” said Ms Sivagnanan.

Public health

AMSA welcomes the commitment to raise the rate of Youth Allowance by $40 per fortnight but continues to advocate for targeted support for healthcare students who undertake numerous hours of unpaid placement and are often subject to multiple relocations within the length of their degree, impacting both likelihood and accessibility of employment.

“The Budget’s $90,000 annual funding for LGBTQIASB+ health via the 10-Year National Action Plan For LGBTIQA+ Health and Wellbeing barely scratches the surface for meeting the continually underserved needs for Australia’s LGBTQIASB+ community,” said Dineli Kalansuriya, Chair of AMSA Queer.

“Whilst we appreciate the spotlight on LGBTQIASB+ health, it leaves issues such as access to life-saving gender-affirming care for transgender, gender-diverse and non-binary people significantly unaddressed and unanswered,” added Ms Kalansuriya.

Additionally, AMSA would like to see further investment into the recruitment and retention of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical students by establishing support services to complete their degrees, including scholarships and expansion of ABSTUDY eligibility.

AMSA is the peak representative body for Australia’s 18,000 medical students.