The South Australia Opposition has announced a financial incentive aimed to bring more IMGs to the state.

With a state election looming in South Australia, the Liberal Party is looking to win over the health sector with its latest election promise.

This new move comes in the form of a promised $40k incentive for overseas-trained GPs who move to South Australia, a move that has also been pushed previously by the RACGP.

Up to 70 GPs would be supported by the $11 million IMG Incentive Package announced on Wednesday, with the incentive expected to roll out yearly pending under a Liberal government.

The RACGP was the first to propose such an initiative after a visit to state parliament back in October, to assist South Australia with a projected drop in GP numbers.

South Australia currently has only 107 GPs for every 100,000 people, sitting lower than the national average of 113 and also reporting lower rates of GPs moving to the state compared to the rest of Australia.

“As someone who settled in South Australia after training in the UK, I can see there are opportunities to attract the specialist GPs we need to both metropolitan areas and our rural and remote towns,” RACGP SA chair Dr Siân Goodson said in October.

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“If we offset their costs with $40,000 grants, we can incentivise these future GPs to move to and train in South Australia.

“These doctors practise outside metropolitan areas, so would be a significant boost for our rural GP workforce.”

The financial incentive is expected to assist with primarily with relocation and visa costs to ease the transition for IMGs coming to the state.

“It’s absolutely a step in the right direction, and given no financial incentives or support for IMGs currently, it’s a reasonable amount of money which will actually make a difference to people’s decisions about which state or where they might choose to settle as an IMG,” Dr Goodson told The Medical Republic.

“We will be asking for more from the federal government, but I think right now, South Australia needs more GPs.

“We have an IMG committee within our state, which is a committee of our faculty council, and they’re doing great work at really trying to improve networks connections.

“We’re doing more than we ever have done, really, to support IMGs entering our system, and it’s really important that they have that connection to their college and that extra support to settle in.”

This is not the only incentive promised this week either, with the SA Liberals also having pledged a separate payment for all healthcare workers moving to South Australia.

An upfront payment of up to $15,000 has been promised for interstate and overseas health professionals that relocate to South Australia to work in public health.

South Australia’s Labor branch is still in talks with the RACGP on matching or adding to this election promise.