Beat Medical Blog

WHO is to fix the global doctor shortage?

Posted by Beat Medical

As the World Health Organisation (WHO) ponders solutions to the global health staffing crisis, Australian healthcare blog Croakey is reporting on ideas to attract and retain health professionals in rural and remote areas.

Recommendations for bolstering rural healthcare include : "[....] financial incentives, personal and professional support, and tailoring education". Whilst these are sound propositions, it could be suggested that there will never be equitable distribution of doctors around a continent such as Australia - with an overwhelming amount of population and social facilities centred around coastal areas.

In simple economic terms, demand is outstripping supply when it comes to doctors to patient ratios in most of Australia. One of the current solutions is regional and rural areas "borrowing" doctors from metropolitan centres as 'locums'. 
 
Employment of locum doctors is widely discouraged as a long-term sustainable solution. However, perhaps it is time for health planners to return to the policy drawing board to re-examine the realistic possibility that locum doctors area a realistic way to manage the needs of under-serviced areas of Australia.

We will be launching a continuing series of articles on the conditions of locums, their experiences, how much they are paid, the limitations of sometimes damaging government bureaucracy, and the real ways the locums who work with our agency make a difference to the lives of those who may otherwise have not had access to a doctor.