The occupancy rate at the Cooma Health Service’s nurses accommodation units has been close to full since the new building was opened last April.

Feedback has been very positive from those who stay in the accommodation facility, from the regulars to one-off users.

Cooma Health Service site manager - director of nursing and midwifery, Donna Saddler, said the staff appreciate the modern lay-out with each of the 12 units containing a kitchen and laundry, making their stay more comfortable. The building also has a common room.

“It’s been a mixture of key health workers from doctors, nurses and midwives, allied health professionals from radiology and pathology,” Mrs Saddler said.

“It’s made a massive difference in that it enables us to attract and accommodate visiting professionals for short-term contracts who fill gaps across all the departments.

“It’s been important for us to be able to continue to do that so vacancies in the health service can be filled, meaning local services can continue uninterrupted.”

Mrs Saddler said the units are used for both short and longer-term accommodation.

“We’ve got our junior medical officers who do a three-month rotation at the hospital so they get to stay there for the three months with us. Probably the general time frame would be between between one and six weeks for those on contracts. There is the odd one or two nights if a doctor filling in on Emergency for a couple of shifts.”

Mrs Saddler said it is rare that there is an unoccupied unit.

“What we have now is manageable. We still use our older accommodation...we have students, nurses and key allied health workers staying in there as well. I think between the two options we have, we are well serviced,” Mrs Saddler said.

Many of the health professionals who have stayed previously are returning on repeat contracts because they know there is high quality accommodation for them to stay in while working in Cooma.

Southern NSW Local Health District (SNSWLHD) was one of three regional health districts to benefit from the NSW government’s $45.3 million investment to deliver accommodation for health workers under the Key Worker Accommodation program.

Due to the success of this program the state government has invested an additional $200.1 million into key health worker accommodation across NSW. As part of this $200 million program an additional $24 million has been delivered into key worker accommodation in SNSWLHD which will deliver more housing for workers in the Eurobodalla, Bega and Crookwell.

Mrs Saddler said the health professionals and key health workers being attracted to the Snowy Monaro are travelling from all over Australia.

“We have had nurses who have come from Adelaide. There was recently a midwife, who’s travelling around the country with their caravan, who took a contract to work here over the December period and was able to have a break from the caravan by staying one of the units,” Mrs Saddler said.