Support, resources crucial to retaining our workforce

Transcript: AMA Queensland President, Dr Nick Yim, ABC Radio, Breakfast with Craig and Loretta, Tuesday 28 January 2025

Subject: health workforce shortage

LORETTA RYAN: The federal government has announced a plan to help fill a major shortfall within our hospitals. The proposal would see nurses from selected countries have their registration fast tracked to get them working on our wards sooner.

CRAIG ZONCA: But will the cutting of red tape be the key to helping alleviate what is a critical shortage of health workers? Let's bring into the conversation, Dr Nick Yim, the President of the Australian Medical Association Queensland. Dr Yim, good morning to you. What are your initial thoughts around this plan?

DR NICK YIM: Good morning. This is definitely a first step. Obviously, as you alluded to, Australia is facing a huge health workforce shortage and that includes your nurses, doctors and allied health workers. In Queensland, we've committed to recruiting 34,000 or so health workers by 2032. So I guess this is a short-term fix, but we do need to look at the big picture.

LORETTA RYAN: When you talk about the shortage, just describe the scene in the hospitals. What sort of pressure is that putting on nurses and on patient care?

DR NICK YIM: I'm sure many of your listeners would have spent a bit of time, maybe over the holiday period, in hospitals, and we know that waiting times have been increasing. There are pressures on doctors and nurses because they do want to deliver the best care for the individual patient, but they’re feeling the experience of burnout, fatigue, and this is the reason why we need those additional healthcare workers.

LORETTA RYAN: We've heard stories of nurses crying during their shifts because they just can't treat patients how they would like to. Is that something you're hearing as well?

DR NICK YIM: Absolutely. This is something that we're hearing from all workforce – so doctors, nurses, allied health. That's the reason why we need to look at these workers coming in. Recruitment is one thing from other countries, but at the same time we do need to ensure that we are training our own. We know it takes many years to train a nurse, it takes many years to train a doctor. At the same time, when we have trained and recruited them, we need to keep them in our state.

CRAIG ZONCA: Yeah, it's the retention. You know, what was once a career for life isn't necessarily the case anymore, and that's across a wide variety of professions.

Dr Nick Yim is with you, the President of the Australian Medical Association Queensland. Just on this and the expedited registration for qualified registered nurses, this will be for those coming in from Britain, Ireland, the US, Singapore, Spain and parts of Canada. You say and describe it like a bit of a band aid solution, that it's got to come back to training. So how do we get more people into the likes of nursing, Dr Nick Yim?

DR NICK YIM: I think one of the key things here is we need to ensure that there's appropriate supports in place when they are in that profession. So, once we get them in there, we want to keep them there. At the same time, we do need to promote these professions to high school students, people maybe who want to change their careers, because working in the healthcare sector is a privilege. It's something where you can help people move forward, help families, etcetera. So, I think there's many strategies, and that's something that AMA Queensland, we're working with the government on currently with our Workforce Working Group.

LORETTA RYAN: Well, what is a strategy to keep nurses here in Queensland and also encourage students to say – ‘yes, I want to be a nurse’ – not that after these stories they're hearing that they might turn away from that idea?

DR NICK YIM: I think it's something where if they are feeling supported, that's one key element. I guess the big elephant in the room is also money. From a Queensland perspective, we do need to ensure that wages are competitive against other states in Australia, but also competitive against other countries around the world, because every country around the world is competing for that health workforce.

CRAIG ZONCA: Okay, Dr Nick Yim, appreciate your time this morning. It's going to be a big 2025, and getting more people into the health workforce is critical to our future. Thanks so much.

DR NICK YIM: Thank you very much.

Contact: AMA Queensland Media, +61 419 735 641, media@amaq.com.au