New Hervey Bay TAFE nursing school to keep nurses in the Wide Bay Burnett

A new ‘state of the art’ training facility at Hervey Bay TAFE will help to an ongoing skills shortage in one of the Wide Bay Burnett’s most important industries.

Training Minister Di Farmer and Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari hope the new Nursing and Allied Health facility at TAFE Queensland’s Hervey Bay campus will encourage nurses to stay in the region.

Training Minister Di Farmer said the new $1.3m Nursing and Allied Health facility at Hervey Bay TAFE will play a “critical” role in keeping up with demand for nurses in the region.

Enrolled and registered nurses are in high demand across the Wide Bay Burnett, with some healthcare facilities waiting years to fill nursing positions.

The government expects 12,500 new skilled jobs to be created in the region by 2025, with the majority of those in the health sector.

“We know if we’re going to meet the demand for health workers we need to train them right now,” Ms Farmer said.

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The government hopes that having more regionally-based training facilities such as the new Nursing and Allied Health facility at Hervey Bay TAFE will result in more clinical staff staying in the regions.

“It’s absolutely critical that people are able to train in their own communities, which means they’re more likely to stay there to do the work,” Ms Farmer said.

“(The new facility will) ensure that our local residents get the opportunity to train here, so that they can take up jobs here and stay here in Harvey Bay and work in our hospitals and our aged care facilities,” Hervey Bay MP Adrian Tantari added.

The facility was officially opened on Wednesday.

One-hundred-an-twenty students are currently enrolled at nursing courses at the Hervey Bay TAFE campus.

One-hundred-an-twenty students are currently enrolled at nursing courses at the Hervey Bay TAFE campus, with TAFE Queensland looking to increase the number of enrolments at other campuses through the virtual cameras included in the new facility.

The facility also includes a training ward for simulating realistic patient environments in a hospital, with life-life mannequins and observation rooms from which teachers can assess students.

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“It’s just state of the art facilities, it’s exactly like what they’d seen the hospital,” TAFE Queensland Faculty Director for Community Services, Health and Sport (East Coast region) Craig Wright said.

“All the equipment in there, it’s very, very industry current.”

The first intake of students at the Nursing and Allied Health facility at Hervey Bay TAFE was in July 2022.