Health Workforce in Australia

Running head: HEALTH WORK FORCE IN AUSTRALIA
Health work force in Australia
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Health work force in Australia
1.0 Executive summary..............................................................................................................2
2.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Q.1 How reliant is Australia at present on international health worker immigration to meet
workforce supply?...........................................................................................................................3
3.1Table 1: the total number of health workers in Australia by 2015.........................................4
Q.2 What are the current Australian government policies on international health worker
immigration?................................................................................................................................5
Q.3 What are the reasons historically for this development within Australia?...............................5
Table 2 number of health workers in Australia survey results....................................................7
Q.4 Are the current policies sustainable?........................................................................................8
Q.5 What changes should the Australian government consider implementing to reduce the
negative effects of health worker migration?..................................................................................8
Q.6 What changes should the Australian government consider implementing to reduce the
negative effects of health worker migration?..................................................................................9
7.0 References..................................................................................................................................9

Health work force in Australia
1.0 Executive summary
There is a major challenge on the demand of health workforce around the globe which
has triggered a major challenge to meet the demand. This demand has resulted in the recruitment
of qualified health workers from overseas which has continued to raise issues by the WHO. The
main challenge has been due to the brain drain of doctors from LMIc by the high-income
countries due to recruitment demand. Australia is a country that has continued to depend on
immigration of health workers had to strategies on measures to mitigate the challenges of health
workers. This concern was triggered due to WHO measures to regulate the immigration of health
workers across the globe. The Australian government devised measures to regulate the health
workforce by taking a survey which has enabled Australia to regulate health workers and attain
effective and sustainable health workforce in urban and rural and remote areas in Australia.
Today Australia has the highest number of immigrant health workforce working in Australia.
2.0 Introduction
Health workforce planning plays a major key role in ensuring health services is optimal
and effective. To meet the high demand for health services, the planning bodies must ensure
there are sufficient health practitioners to meet the health demand. To maintain the decreasing
numbers of professional and practicing health workers many countries have resulted in
outsourcing doctors from other countries (O’Sullivan, Russell, McGrail, & Scott, 2019). This
result due to many factors some being the lack of sufficient ski ls and labor force. In this case,
we will focus on health planning, reliance on immigration of health workforce and measures of
the increasing workforce in Australia to meet the health demand.

Health work force in Australia
Q.1 How reliant is Australia at present on international health worker immigration to meet
workforce supply?
There are major reasons as to why Australia has continued to depend on international
migration on the health workforce. The decreasing number of the health workforce in Australia
due to age. Australia Institute Health and ware fare report indicates that in 2015 there were
100,000 registered health practitioners and 88,000 were working in the medical field. The report
indicates that 2 of 5 employees were women working 42 hrs a week. 1 of 4 employees was aged
over 55. The number of registered midwifery was 360,000, 305,000 of these numbers were
employees in the nursing field working 33.5 hrs in a week. 9 of 10 employees were women while
2 in every 5 were aged over 50 years.
3.1Table 1: the total number of health workers in Australia by 2015
2015
2015 total employed hrs women % men over 55 years
medical practitioners 100000 88000 42 40% 60% 25%
midwifery and nurses 360000 305000 33.5 90% 10% 40%
The world health organization report indicates that there is a shortfall of over 2million
health workers including doctors, nurses, and midwifery required to meet the recommended
density. The migration of health workers from low medium income countries to high-income
countries results in this shortage to the local.