If they build it, will they come? A question for the Minister for Health

The new Level 4 facility cannot not come quickly enough for many community members forced to travel to Bega, Canberra and Sydney for specialist care.

As it is, general practice doctor appointments in Batemans Bay can incur a six week waiting period due to GP shortages.

So the question of how the hospital will find and retain staff remains on the lips of Eurobodalla residents.

When Federal Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler visited the Batemans Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic (UCC) on Tuesday, July 9, the question was put to him.

Mr Butler said the staffing of the new hospital was ultimately a matter for NSW.

"But we are working with that State Government and all the other state governments on strategies to bulk up our medical workforce, including from overseas," he said.

"So trying to streamline all our overseas trained doctors, that have always been a big part of our medical workforce, who are able to come in and particularly fill some of those gaps in regional communities."

Coordinare CEO Prudence Buist was confident the Shoalhaven hospital redevelopment would attract health workers to the South Coast, and this would have a trickle-on effect.

"The new hospital in Nowra, when that opens, will certainly attract new specialists," she said.

"I've worked in Wollongong, and certainly when the new private hospital opened in Wollongong we saw a lot more surgeons and physicians coming out of Sydney to Wollongong, and now they are starting to move south."

Ms Buist said the increased number of students undertaking "end-to-end training" at the University of Wollongong's Shoalhaven campus would positively impact the health worker shortage in the region.

"So we know the more we train them locally the more likely they are to stay," she said

General Manager of Batemans Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, Brad Scotcher, said there was a shift in focus on how GPs were trained.

"We are also investing heavily in the single employer model which will also train people to be GPs and work in hospitals at the same time," he said.

"So that's a model we are investing in heavily."

Since opening in December 2023, more than 6000 patients have presented themselves for urgent, non-life threatening care to the UCC.

Practice nurse and manager Cara Young was on hand to show Minister Butler and Federal Member for Gilmore, Fiona Phillips, around the facility.

Leading them into the treatment rooms, she said the repurposed area of Batemans Bay Hospital had once been office space.

Now the clinic offers an alternative to presenting to the emergency department (ED) for patients who cannot wait for a GP appointment.

This had significantly eased the pressure on the ED.