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Posted: 2022-11-27 02:31:44

Medical students in NSW will be soon be given paid positions in hospitals to bolster the health workforce.

The NSW government will create more than 1,000 part-time positions annually for final-year trainees to work alongside doctors as paid "assistants in medicine" in city and regional hospitals.

The program was first trialled in 2020 to combat a staff shortage during the pandemic, and allows final-year students more time in wards and theatres than a usual university placement.

Premier Dominic Perrottet said the program was the first of its kind in the country.

"Our last-year medical students as part of this program are working under supervision with doctors. It actually enhances the health system," Mr Perrottet said.

"Not only are we having more hands on deck, in addition to that we're providing more experience for our future doctors."

Nurses and midwives marched through Sydney's CBD earlier this month, warning of "extreme fatigue" among health workers who were regularly covering extra shifts on understaffed wards.

Mr Perrottet said the problem of skilled worker shortages was not isolated to NSW.

"This is a national issue, it's an international problem, but we'll get through it," he said. 

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the program had proved a "win-win" for students and hospitals.

"These medical students have done an exceptional job supporting our frontline hospital staff in the most critical of times during COVID-19 and, in doing so, gained fantastic experience that will help propel their careers forward as the next generation of NSW doctors," Mr Hazzard said.

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