ACT government to provide $3 million in study support payments for healthcare students

The ACT government will provide $3 million over three years in study support payments for students undertaking health degrees.

Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the government will discuss with universities about the best way to distribute the money to students.

"We know that if people do study in the ACT, they are more likely to come into our health system and we'll be working with our universities on how exactly we structure those packages," she said.

"Also we know that we are competing with other jurisdictions who are providing attraction incentives to come and study, including nursing and midwifery students and allied health students in particular."

Ms Stephen-Smith said the government would also explore how undergraduate students could have greater opportunities to work in the hospital system through their degree.

The budget measure comes after Victoria and NSW announced payments for healthcare students last year.

University of Canberra faculty of health executive dean Michelle Lincoln welcomed the ACT's announcement, saying the ACT needed a similar measure otherwise it risked losing students to other places.

"It's really important the ACT has a response to that because there is a real risk that we would lose students to those areas and of course once they go to university there and they do their placements there, they're more likely to work there," she said.

"So incentives and support for students to study health in the ACT is really important to ensure we have that workforce in the future."

Professor Lincoln said the number of people who enrolled in nursing this year was 100 fewer than last year.

She said the university had approached the government with a range of ideas about way they could support and incentivise health students.

She said the cost of living was an immediate concern for students and it would be good to see the money used to support students with these costs.

"We need to make sure that we have an adequate pipeline of students to meet that future need and I think for students it's really about offsetting the cost of living increases that we've seen," Professor Lincoln said.

"We do know our students, many of them, are doing it a bit tough at the moment."

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Professor Lincoln said it was also important that medical students were able to do their placements without having to work long hours at the same time.

"We don't want our students working in hospitality or entertainment until midnight every night and then turning up for a placement for a shift at 6am in the morning. They're not going to do their best learning," she said.

The $3 million was part of a health workforce package announced by the government on Tuesday, which will be included in the upcoming territory budget.

Also included in the package was funding for an extra 80 workers. Ms Stephen-Smith said there would be a focus on recruiting additional support staff, alongside doctors and nurses.

"There is a significant focus in this particular budget on those support staff that will be needed to open the critical services building," she said.

"We will need more wards people, we need more ward staff ... but we'll also need more medical professionals, we'll have more medical imaging, we'll have an additional theatre opening so we'll need doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and, of course, all the people that sit behind and support those teams."

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