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500 more doctors and 650 more nurses needed

By Mark Metherell

25 June 2002 - Australia needs another 500 doctors and 650 nurses to tackle the woeful ill-health among indigenous people, according to a draft report to the federal Department of Health.

There are about 8700 staff in indigenous health services, including doctors, nurses and other health workers. The report said that matching the low staffing levels available in the cities would require staff numbers to be increased to 12,600, but to meet higher staffing levels found in better-served metropolitan communities would need 22,000 staff.

The report also notes that while Australians overall have the second highest longevity in the world, there has been no increase in the average lifespan of the Aboriginal population in the past decade.

Indigenous peoples' median age at death is 53 years, compared with 78 for the total population. It states: "Australia is distinct among the countries with which we compare ourselves, both in having poorer performance in improving Aboriginal health and in having achieved lower Aboriginal participation in the health workforce."

The federal Health Minister's office has dismissed the figures in the consultants' report as "flawed". But the analysis follows federal and state health ministers last year identifying workforce shortages in indigenous health services as an "urgent priority".

While there was no extra funding in last month's federal Budget for more doctors and nurses in indigenous services, a government spokesman said the Commonwealth was working with the states to pool resources to recruit more health staff.

The assessment on workforce requirements was undertaken by a group of experts who advised the department's Office for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health. It proposed staffing increases ranging from 44 per cent to 153 per cent.

An authority on Aboriginal health, Ian Ring, who was one of the consultants who advised on workforce needs, said spending on Aboriginal health was rising. But the Commonwealth Government still spent 74¢ on Aboriginal health for every $1 spent on the rest of the population for programs under its direct control, said Professor Ring, of James Cook University.

This is partly because indigenous Australians are less likely to go to private doctors funded by Medicare or get prescriptions under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. But they are higher users of public hospitals funded by the states.

He said that despite some good news, the overall mortality of Australia's indigenous population had not improved and was much worse than indigenous populations in New Zealand, the United States and Canada.

A spokesman for the Health Minister, Kay Patterson, said the department did not accept the base figures on which the workforce estimates were constructed. The data used was "limited" and the department did not accept the consultants' assessments on future need. He said the Commonwealth had increased spending on indigenous health by 89 per cent since 1996.

Source:The Sydney Morning Herald

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