Investing in our future
Published: 4 October 2010
Now that the outcome of the 2010 federal election is finally known we must turn our attention to identifying and using every opportunity available to us to advance the interests of nurses and midwives. There is certainly no shortage of issues requiring attention and we must continue to pursue unfinished business in critical areas such as aged care, midwifery and promoting advanced practice roles.
While so many critical health issues span across the boundaries of federal/state policy responsibility and will be captured in the national health reform agenda work plan, some still seem to fall between the policy cracks. One such critical policy priority area is health workforce, and in particular the employment of new graduate nurses and midwives.
The QNU believes that no clear responsibility has been taken for ensuring the optimisation of employment of new graduates. Over recent years hundreds of new graduates have failed to secure prompt employment after graduation and we fear the situation will become even more dire at the end of this year given the current low vacancy and turnover rates, especially within Queensland Health.
We are in the grips of a conundrum; one where current and future imperatives are in sharp relief. This conundrum is exacerbated by the always tight budget situation for the health and aged care sector. Over the next twenty years around two thirds of the currently employed registered and enrolled nurses in Queensland will be reaching retirement age. It is more, not less, nurses and midwives who will be needed to support the growing demand for and expansion of health and aged care services in both the acute and non-acute sectors. It is estimated that Queensland Health’s nursing and midwifery workforce alone will have to grow by over 10,000 positions by 2016 in order to cope with their service expansion.
Importantly, we know there has been an increase in enrolments in both university and TAFE nursing and midwifery courses—demand for places remains strong at present. This will not remain the case if strategies aren’t urgently developed to optimise the employment of all available new graduates. Word is spreading fast among current and potential students about difficulties being experienced gaining employment by many new graduates.
The QNU can clearly see what the requirements of a nursing and midwifery workforce will be over the next ten to twenty years. We have a long term vision but are caught in the short term imperatives of tight budgets and current low vacancy rates. This is the conundrum; the health workforce is still viewed as a short term budgetary liability and not as a long term investment to achieve optimal health and wellbeing for our community.
A new way of looking at the workforce is required, one where both state and federal governments share responsibility for meeting the objectives of delivering services in a sustainable manner both now and into the future.
Leadership is required to find a new way forward for health workforce planning and the QNU has called upon Queensland’s Deputy Premier and Minister for Health Paul Lucas to drive this agenda. The current way of doing things isn’t working—where no one level of government has sole responsibility for delivering an outcome there is no genuine accountability. Recently we wrote to Mr Lucas and federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon requesting urgent action on the issue of the employment of new graduates. We are hopeful Mr Lucas will make it an urgent agenda item at the next Health Minister’s meeting.
Time is of the essence. An urgent injection of funding is required over the coming years if we are to address our present workforce conundrum and position our country for a sustainable and safe future. Our new graduate nurses and midwives must be viewed as a precious resource, an investment for the future that will achieve a healthier Australian community, not as merely a threat to our current budgetary bottom line.
To see our letter to the Health Minister visit our website at www.qnu.org.au
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