Townsville Hospital hurdle major blow to rural doctor availability

If the status of country doctors in Queensland wasn’t dire enough, an administrative technicality is set to make matters worse.

Townsville University Hospital

North Queensland’s largest hospital has been excluded from training doctors in rural intensive care because it also has a cardiothoracic unit, in a medical administration decision set to ultimately impact doctor availability in the regions.

Townsville Hospital and Health Service CEO Kieran Keyes confirmed Townsville University Hospital was excluded from holding “rural” status for accredited intensive care training last year, in a major loss for its ability to attract trainee doctors.

Multiple appeals by Townsville HHS, and the recent enlistment of Health Minister Shannon Fentiman, to overturn the decision by the College of Intensive Care Medicine have so far been unsuccessful despite warnings worker shortages would be made worse.

The issue was sparked by the College of Intensive Care Medicine in early 2022 changing its policy on what was considered “rural” in a bid to expand the number of acceptable rural intensive care training locations.

But the college also specifically noted hospitals in regional centres “accredited for Cardiothoracic Intensive Care training will not be approved for rural term”, with the CICM website specifically noting the exclusion of Townsville.

The policy change meant Cairns Hospital and the Royal Darwin Hospital, both based in regional cities large enough to be serviced by international airports, were granted rural intensive care training status.

Leaving Townsville University Hospital off the list has already impacted its attractiveness as a training hospital, with young medicos choosing hospitals where they can do their rural term instead.

Mr Keyes said THHS was disappointed by the decision to “withdraw recognition of Townsville University Hospital’s intensive care unit for rural training”.

He said the move would compound medical recruitment challenges experienced by the health service.

“Because of this decision the college, TUH has lost its ‘rural’ status for this accredited ICU training,” Mr Keyes said.

“We are continuing to train future intensive care specialists at TUH; however, this withdrawal of recognition by the college means registrars can no longer choose to take up rural ICU training opportunities with our hospital.”

A CICM spokesperson said Townsville University Hospital was approved for advanced ICU training but provided tertiary services to a level that meant it could not be considered rural.

“Townsville hospital’s adult ICU is a major tertiary Intensive Care Unit (ICU) which is approved by the College of Intensive Care Medicine for the maximum time of advanced ICU training, which is 24 months,” she said.

“It has never been accredited as rural training time given the tertiary services it provides.”

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said the college’s decision was disappointing and it meant there would be less medical students being training in rural intensive care.

She said Townsville was the gateway to many rural and regional communities and training more students at TUH meant more would work and stay in the surrounding areas.