The national Rural Education Assistance Program is offering up to $6000 in funding to urban general practitioners (GPs) to access three days of emergency medicine training in exchange for short-term relief work in the country.

The Government will spend $790,000 over four years to train 150 doctors nation-wide so they each can spend four weeks relieving country GPs.

Federal Opposition Spokesperson for Rural Health Doctor Andrew Southcott said it was unlikely someone with an established practice would take time off to relieve rural doctors.

“It (the program) is just shuffling people around, not adding to the workforce,” he said.

Mannum Medical Centre doctor Stephen Napoli said while upskilling urban based GPs seemed a cure-all there were problems with the program.

“Significant obstacles to the success of this program would include overcoming the existing shortage in many urban practices and the difficulty in urban practices themselves covering their own leave,” he said.

“There is also the personal cost to urban based GPs to leave their own families and friends to work in a rural area.”

Dr Napoli said locum support to an ailing rural problem would only be a short-term measure.

He feared many towns would continue to be plagued by difficulties in sustaining medical services without appropriate funding for infrastructure, nursing, allied health and practice management staff.

Federal Minister for Rural and Regional Health Warren Snowdon said some urban GPs were interested in rural locum work but a lack of experience in emergency medicine meant they did not always feel skilled or confident enough to carry out tasks country doctors performed on a regular basis.

A spokesperson for Mr Snowdon said urban doctors interested in accessing the new program would need to undertake the four weeks of relief work once they finished the emergency training.