Study Takes the Federal Government Migration Policy on Health Care Crisis

I ran into another very interesting article on the migration and education related health care crisis in Australia and would like to share the crux of the story with everyone.

The article is summarized as follows:

A recently published report has criticized the Federal Government for nation’s crippled public hospital system. It states that the crisis the country is facing in the health sector can be directly traced back to the short-sighted decision by the federal Labor government in the late 1980s and early ’90s to significantly slow student intake at university medical schools, ignoring the growth of the Australian population and the consequent increased demand on the health system.

The result is a serious shortage of senior doctors in public hospitals. This has been exacerbated by cash-strapped state health departments recruiting overseas-trained medical staff, often inexperienced, as a quick fix.

But more often than not this has just added to the chaos.

A report last month by federal parliament’s joint standing committee on migration inquiring into the use of temporary business visas raised serious concerns about the level of skills screening for the 2500 overseas-trained doctors who enter Australia each year, many fast-tracked by state health departments.

The Australian Medical Association told the inquiry that as far back as 2004 the overseas-trained doctor subcommittee of the Medical Training Review Panel had reported that as few as 28per cent of overseas-trained doctors received any type of formal orientation to the Australian healthcare environment. Is it any wonder that a doctor from a strikingly different cultural background, with little or no previous hands-on medical experience, is easily disoriented in a system that is, of itself, dysfunctional? And being able to satisfy an English language test does not necessarily mean a comprehension of the cultural and communications environment in which these medical staff are working.

It also does not guarantee the sort of judgment skills necessary when a doctor is confronted by a complex medical predicament that may require a significantly different cultural approach from that adopted in the doctor’s home country.

The situation is made even more acute when the basic communications systems required for the efficient running of our public hospitals have clearly broken down. The opportunity for these inexperienced doctors to receive advice before making a crucial decision on patient treatment is often not available because of the shortage of senior medical staff.

There is mounting anecdotal evidence of this from within the medical profession, particularly in NSW.

A by-product of the shortage of senior medical staff is a lack of communication between doctors about patient profiles. It has also prevented adequate supervision of overseas-trained doctors working in an unfamiliar cultural environment.

A serious shortage of nurses in the public hospital system has added to this communications crisis and placed what may be a disproportionate level of responsibility on overseas-trained nurses brought in to fill the vacuum.

The problem here is that nurses graduating from Australian universities are more inclined to aim for administrative roles in the hospital system rather than roles as patient carers.

In many cases this has shifted the traditional hands-on care role to overseas-trained nurses.

In this area the Prime Minister has sought to restore some balance into the system by offering financial incentives for hospital-based training for nurses.

The policy is also aimed at luring locally trained nurses who have retired for family and other reasons to re-enter the nursing profession. It is a step, albeit a small one, in the right direction.

But the task of overhauling the public hospital system is a much bigger one, and one that requires urgent action. The issue of the lack of cultural awareness and judgment skills by some foreign-trained doctors cannot be ducked in the interests of expediency.

Nor can it be sidestepped on the grounds of discrimination. It must be looked at when addressing the big picture in the interests of the nation’s health.

Source:  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22514430-7583,00.html