DOVER, Del. (AP) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has awarded two Delaware health systems $750,000 in federal funds to develop residency programs in the state’s rural communities.

The agency announced the grants for Bayhealth and Beebe Medical Centers on Thursday. The funds will go toward developing residency programs that’ll place family medicine doctors in what health officials called “neglected rural areas.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kara Odom Walkers said she hopes the program will encourage new doctors to pursue primary care, especially those from rural areas.

The announcement comes less than a month after a state board denied Beebe’s application to build an emergency room that’d service rural parts of Sussex County, and Bayhealth pulled its application to build its own emergency room just 10 miles (16 kilometers) away.

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