Shortage of ‘Nursing Practitioners’ in Australian Rural Area
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This essay discusses the shortage of nursing practitioners in Australian rural areas and the challenges faced by the healthcare system. It also suggests strategies to attract people towards rural nursing care services.
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Health workforce Essay System04104
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Shortage of ‘Nursing Practitioners’ in Australian Rural Area Lack of access to primary and preventive care services by people living in Australian rural areas remains one of the main problems of Australian health care services, even the government take several workforce initiatives in past. No one can deny that nurse practitioners play an essential role in the nation's health care system by serving people. Nursing practitioners serve as an alternative of medical physicians in scarcity of doctors or physicians in both rural and urban areas (Campell & Merwin, 2009). Many such problems arise in rural areas, where people fighting with lack of medical resources, equipment, medicines, doctors, and even some people fighting with the unavailability of the hospital in their locality. The rural nursing shortage is a challenge for the Australian government with the shortage of other medical facilities in the rural and remote areas of the country. However, the government initiated a large number of programs to fight with the shortage of healthcare practitioners in rural areas, but still the Australian government is facing challenges to eliminate this problem at the root level. In order to remove workforce shortage problem in nursing practices, the Australian government introduced a number of initiative programs such as regulatory restrictions and incentive payment systems (Buerhus, Donelan, Ulrich, Norman, & Dittus, 2005). Some of the programs especially focus on increasing the numbers of nurses and healthcare practitioners and remote in rural areas of the country. Practice nursing in Australia usually has been a way of income for nursing practitioners through which nurses have been accommodating for family obligations by engaging themselves in part-time work, which has not involved in shift work. Consequently, there has been a lack of special skills nurses who believe to work in general practice. One of the main problems is that most of the nurses do not involve in any formal education to do such type of healthcare service work. Nursing workforce in Australia till 2016 There are 311,697 primary health care nurses (including midwives) working in Australian primary healthcare service till 2016, which is more than the nurses were working in 2013. The number of nurses in 2013 was 292,845. In 2016, the number of nurses increased by 0.4 % per annum. This compares to the total nursing workforce including midwives in 2016 (311,697) which has increased by approx. 6.7% since 2013, with an annual average increase of 2.1% (Department of Health Australia, 2016).
Fig: Total number of nurses and midwives in Australia till 2016 (Source: Australian Government, Department of Health, 2016-17) InthePrimaryHealthCareNurseworkforce,therewere217Nurse Practitioners working in primary health care in 2016, compared with 135 in 2013. Fig: Total number of Registered and Employed Nurses in Australia till 2016 ( Source: Australian Government, Department of Health, 2016-17) According to the Australian Government Department of Health, total Registered Nurses till 2016, in Australia were 1,417 and there were 1,340 nurses were employed in the country. There are only 498 nurses registered for the Australian healthcare service program in 3 years after 2013, where the number of employed nurses increases by only 567 nurses. This shows the unavailability and slow rate of unemployment in healthcare service in Australia (National Health Workforce, 2009). Even though the Australian government initiates a number of healthcare program to attract people towards the health care service job, but could not succeed to attract candidate for future nursing work. Geographically Distribution of Nurses Most of the Australian primary health care nurses (63.5%) were located in urban areas or in big cities of the country. If we consider the Inner Regional area, the numbers of total primary healthcare nurses are 18.4% that is too low in comparison to major cities.
Fig: Total number of nurses and midwives in Australia till 2016 (Source: Australian Government, Department of Health, 2016-17) If we compare with the rural areas, only 18.1% nurses working in rural areas. If we compared with the number of nurses in 2013, the percentage of the workforce in the remote area has remained almost same, while 71.5% of the workforce (210,994) working in the developed area, it means there are a large number of the workforce employed in major cities rather than rural areas or remote areas. This shows the unavailability of the number of nurses in Australian rural areas. The distribution of nurses geographically not suited for Australian Population because the availability of nurses according to the rural population density is too low. One of the major problems behind facing scarcity of nurses in rural areas is no one wants to work in the less-developed and ill-equipped area (Fitzgerald, 2007). The unavailability of resources and poor working conditions for females in rural areas are two main reasons behind the unavailability of the health workforce in Australia. Fig: Some Facts about Australian Nursing in Rural Areas in 2016 (Source: Australian Government, Department of Health, 2016-17)
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These are some quick facts about the Australian nurses employed and practising in Australia. The average age of the nurses is 49 years who worked 39.6 hours per week, per nurse. The average hours of work are too less. The government should increase the number of working hours if we considered the scarcity of nurses in rural areas. While the percentage of nurses if we considered 80.7 % nurses are female. Most of the nurses are between the age of 45-54 years (National Health Workforce Dataset 2013—2016, 2018). Issues and Challenges in Rural Nursing care Australia faces many issues and challenges in healthcare workforce and deliverance of health care services to its rural and remote areas. Nurses are the core part of primary health care services in Australia and play a significant role in providing better health care services to the people. The majority of healthcare practitioners employed at least one nurse, where one general practice nurse employed in a small health care system (Dickinson, 2004). The above stats about the nursing Australia show that only 6% (remote and very remote area) nurses are employed in rural areas. The nurses are the backbone of any country's healthcare programs. Like any other countries Australia also facing the problem of shortage of nurses. The rural population of Australia is considered as socio-economic underprivileged area by reason of their lack in education and facing the problem of expert work (Joyce & Piterman, 2011). The number of nurses increasing from last three years (2013-16) at very slow rate, and create real trouble for the Australian government. Large numbers of nurses are more than the age of 45 years and they are between 45-54 years that create a problem for quick retirement from their service. The numbers of nurses are decreasing because the number of registered nurses in Australia is growing at a very slow rate, as only 498 nurses registered for the nursing services in 3 years. The number of employed nurses is another problem where only 567 nurses employed by the government in 3 years of duration (Roberge, 2009). One of the other problems in the Australian healthcare system is indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. However, the nurses who are mostly over aged nurses, facing problem in rural areas because of lack of resources and proper healthcare facilities. Nurses who are active in remote and rural areas may find themselves with a conflicting mix of both social isolation and social exposure as well (Manahan & Lavoice, 2008). According to the Australian Institute and Family Welfare, the Australian government consist of various communities and culture in the different geographic location of the
country. The current problem of workforce scarcity in the Australian healthcare system consists of demographic, socio-culture, and both clinical and professional factors that determine the demand for healthcare services and supply of healthcare workers. According to the Australian Department of health, 80.1% of the nurses are females and thus government need to attract males for the same work (Nurses in Rural Australia, 2011). The Australian government needs to spread awareness among people about the various disease and all the health hazards, which arises from alcoholism, obese, and smoking or overweight problems. The awareness among people reduces the disease level and in results, it reduces the need of a number of nurses. Australia is also suffering from high mortality rate in the rural areas. The causes of high mortality rates are the cardiac disorder, road traffics, lung cancer and disease, accidents, diabetes and high blood pressure. These increasing rates of mortality and the cause factor need the high level of healthcare facilities. It is possible with an adequate health care workforce, including nurses, medical practitioners, and doctors. The shortage of other healthcare workforces also affects nursing works, because they are the people who deal with the clients and patients. The Australian government failed in staffing adequate numbers of nurses that build pressure in healthcare service in the country in both rural and urban areas. Small numbers of nurses treated a large number of patients in rural areas, because Australian government depends on very few registered nurses, although the number of midwives is more than the number of nurses, but the nature of work of midwives is different. A patient can be treated as the customer of the healthcare system, thus according to consumer protection rights, they have their own right to get proper care and facilities in hospitals. Thus, it is also a responsibility of hospital management to recruit nurses according to the demand of healthcare services in both rural and remote areas. One of the other causes in the shortage of Australian rural nurses is the resignation of nurses from rural hospitals. The major cause behind this was ‘personal value’ of how nursing should be conflicted with the hospital's organisational values. The conflict between rural hospital and nurses creates the problem that leads to a high number of resignations of nurses from the duty. The shortage of rural nurses forces the current nurses to work more. Nurses play a diverse role in the rural areas. Even the new and un-expert nurses are working in the rural areas that are not educated or expert in the nursing care work. This creates the problem for providing proper nursing care for clients or patients. The Australian government should not focus to fill the gap of required nurses. One of the major problems in Australian rural healthcare services is access, particularly the physical distance between patient and service
provider (hospitals). This not only causes waste off time but also creates the problem for the patient, as he/she cannot afford the money of treatment. As the 80% of the nurses are females they do not even try to join the services in rural areas because of the lack of resources and connectivity with the big cities. The socio-culture issues are another problem in Australia that affects the nursing care staff. The socio-cultural difference creates poor communication with the community of nurses. Strategies to attract people towards the rural nursing care services To short out the above problems regarding low nursing workforce, the Australian government has to take several steps that attract young people towards the nursing care work. The government of Australia and its department of health have to focus on medical colleges and universities that provide medical and nursing education to the student and inspire them to work in a rural area and serve those people who are facing critical health problems. Even the Australian government operating a number of healthcare programs and incentive programs to improve the intensity of the health care workforce, but it was not effective (Lynn & Brownie, 2015). In addition to this, the Australian government and various health authorities of the country send nurses to the medical college and schools to tell their experience of nursing work to the youths and about its value and benefits. The Australian government can also provide all the school, medical colleges, and universities students to visit in hospitals and observe the job of a nurse and his/her duty that how a nurse can save the life of patients. These steps of the government inspire the youth to take part in nursing care work and it also motivates them to do something for those rural communities who are facing many healthcare problems because of unavailability of resource and healthcare staff (Kenney & Ducketts, 2003). Moreover, the Australian government should provide more benefits and incentives for those nurses who took part in rural nursing care services.
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(Source: Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand Inc) With the aim of reducing the effect of workforce shortage, the Australian government and other health authorities should focus on to retain old nurses and employment strategies. The healthcare authorities should offer childcare services to reduce infant mortality rate and provide cash incentives for both new and old nurses. The government should provide more sick and casual leave for staff. In case of sick leave, the government should connect with external agencies that fill the staff in case of emergency or unavailability of adequate nurses in particular situations. Appoint nurse from overseas is another option for the Australian government. The government should eliminate those past programs those are less effective and not working. Instead of this government should launch new health programs that attract youth towards nursing work (Hickey, Sumsion, &Harrison, 2009).
It is the high time to identify the problems of workforce shortage in Australia and it should be noted that it is not the matter of financial barricade rather it is the matter of Australian people and their well-being. If the government fail to find out the problems, not able to provide proper resources and equipment to the rural hospitals, it will lead to the long- term problems for the country in form of medical workforce shortage (Courtney, Nash, Thornton, & Potgieter, 2015). The government should provide effective obtainable retirement programs to stay skilled nurses and their service and knowledge from a long-term perspective. The Government should provide more resources and funds for research and should provide sufficient payments for the nurses who work in rural areas. Security is the other big problem for female nurses, that should be encountered by providing them accommodation and financial resources to leave and settle in rural areas during service period (Nancy, 2007). Apart from this, the government should provide flexible working hours and shifts for female workers, especially who are old age and sick, as most of the nurses are female and above and between 45 years to 54 years. The government should reduce the working hours from 8-12 hours to 5-6 hours for old age nurses. In conclusion, while the nurses in rural areas facing most of the problems, they should compensate with more benefits and salary, thus they give their best in healthcare services. Working as a general-specialist, rural area nurses should have provided adequate healthcare resources; proper infrastructure for healthcare services, good salary, and incentives for rural area nurses, and provide advanced technological equipment for treatment of patient. If government provide all the facilities to these nurses and attract those youths who are studying medical and nursing care in different school and colleges of Australia, the number of nurses should be increased in upcoming days in rural areas.
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Lynn, A., & Brownie, S. (2015). The Perioperative Nurse Surgeon's Assistant: Issues and challenges associated with this emerging advanced practice nursing role in Australia.Collegian,22(1), 109-115. Manahan, C. & Lavoice, J. G. (2008). Factors Influencing Rural Nursing Retention.Journal of Rural Nursing and Healthcare. 8(2), 226-228. Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand (2016) Medical graduates in Australia. Retrieve from: https://medicaldeans.org.au/data/? md_year=2016&data_type=Graduates&country=AU&students=Domestic&preview= Nancy, L. (2007). Strategies to enhance retention and effective utilization of aging nurses. Journal of nursing education, 46(4), 89-97. National Health Workforce (2009).Health Workforce in Australia and Factor For Current Strategies.Retrieved from: http://www.ahwo.gov.au National Health Workforce Dataset 2013—2016 (2018). Registered and employed workforce data. Retrieve from: http://data.hwa.gov.au/datasets.html Nurses in Rural Australia (2011).The challenges of remote Nursing in rural Australia. Retrieved from: http://www.ausmedonline.com/nursing Roberge, C. M. (2009). Factors Influencing Rural Nursing Retention.Have Rural Nursing and Health Care, 9(9), 46—54. The Australia Department of Health Australia (2018). Nurse practitioners' and midwives' access to the Medicare Benefits Schedule and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Retrieve From: http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/work- nurse