JCU Cairns misses out on 2023 Commonwealth Supported Places
Aspirations of Cairns being home to a university hospital have been dealt a blow after the city missed out on its share of $90m to provide commonwealth supported med student places.
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Cairns has missed out on a share of a fresh round of $90m to provide Commonwealth Supported Places for medicine students.
The federal government on Monday announced an extra 160 medical student places in regional communities in Victoria, WA, Tasmania, New South Wales and Rockhampton.
The investment will build medical classrooms, equipment and facilities, as well as provide up to 80 new medical Commonwealth Supported Places.
Places will be matched by universities that must redirect an equivalent number of their existing placements to the six new rural programs.
Last year James Cook University welcomed 20 new Commonwealth Supported Places for medicine students in a one off allocation, however this year the institution was left off the list of six recipient universities after a competitive grants process.
JCU has failed to win any of the 80 new places to train more doctors funded in 2022 by the federal government, despite lobbying by the institution and Advance Cairns, whose chairman Nick Trompf said at the time, places were “critical” to achieving University hospital status.
JCU Vice Chancellor Professor Simon Biggs said the school received 20 Commonwealth Supported Places for Medicine in Cairns last year and was dismayed by not having gained more places.
“Naturally, we are disappointed not to be supported in this current round,” he said.
Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service board chairman Clive Skarott said he was surprised that Cairns had been overlooked.
“I’m really surprised to hear this, we need every doctor we can get, there’s a huge shortage of GPs, and if we don’t get as many doctors trained as we can we will have a shortage forever,” he said.
“We need a constant flow of doctors and we can’t afford to lose (them) in Cairns as the population continues to grow.”
Despite Cairns’ critical shortage of GPs, JCU prior to last year’s allocation had Queensland’s smallest allocation of Commonwealth Supported Places for medicine.
Mr Skarott said the omission of Cairns from the latest round of Commonwealth Supported Places funding would hurt the city’s ambition to elevate Cairns Hospital to tertiary grade facility.
“I would say it’s a step back,” he said.
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JCU in March welcomed a cohort of 39 medical students, who began their journey to become doctors as part of Cairns’ very first end-to-end medical program offered at the university’s Nguma-bada campus in Smithfield.
The Commonwealth Supported Places subsidy means in 2022 students were only required to pay a contribution of $11,401, which is a small percentage of the full tuition fee.
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Originally published as JCU Cairns misses out on 2023 Commonwealth Supported Places
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