North West Queensland’s health needs and social disadvantage is exaggerated by high staff turnover at local hospitals and health services, and competition against the mining industry.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This concern is what two Mount Isa health academics will speak on when addressing a national nursing forum in Sydney on Monday.
Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health (MICRRH) director Sabina Knight and North West Hospital and Health Service’s executive director of nursing, Michelle Garner, collaborate on why changes in health needs to happen in the outback.
“Mining offers highly paid jobs with relative low requirements for formal qualifications resulting in a magnification of the health workforce maldistribution,” Professor Knight said.
This affected MICRRH’s desire to pursue locally based graduates.
They both will explain why James Cooks University’s programs were important to meeting health needs in the region. Associate professor Garner said that local graduates were more likely to be work ready and useful to the service in the first two years.
“Nurses recruited from metropolitan areas are unfamiliar with the context of practice, the burden of disease, the health services and the cultural context,” she said.
“One full time equivalent is not the same effective value as a local experienced full time, playing further stress on health services across rural and remote Australia.”
Professor Knight said that MICRRH, James Cook University and the NWHHS had worked together on developing a nursing workforce for the region.
It was a long term plan
The strategy included local recruitment, marketing, enhanced curriculum, making local nurse leaders become lecturers and tutors, and offering student accommodation, and a regional graduate program.
