What Is Contributing to the Shortage of General Practitioners in Australia?

In 2003, there were only 2.6 doctors for every 1,000 people in Australia, but now there are 3.5 practising doctors for every 1,000 people. In spite of everything, why is there a need to import professionals for medical jobs in Australia from the overseas?

With more than 3,500 graduate doctors from the Australian Medical Schools, Australia is competing with Denmark and Ireland to hold the top spot. So when we have too many doctors, why is there a shortage?

Almost all Australians make an appointment with a general practitioner once during any time of the year. General practitioners are in high demand for the specific areas, including aged care, frequent management of chronic conditions, test ordering and high demand for treatments.

Also, a significant number of patients are growing older each year, and the same happens with the doctors who take care of them. However, General practitioners have the greatest number of employed doctors aged over 55 out of any clinician group. Also, this might present the profession with challenges, as finding immediate replacement is difficult when a large generational proportion is heading towards retirement.

Will training the medical students as GPs fill the gap?

Sadly, no! Despite the fact that the medical students are rising than ever before, still the entrants who follow the route of training to become a qualified GP are less. Despite the number of general practitioners that has remained unchanged over the past 10 years, doctors are venturing out into other specialties at a rapid pace.

It is because –

• There is a significant shortage of doctors in the regional and remote areas.
• There is an imbalance between the medical generalists and more numbers of specialists in each medical field.
• Inappropriate care due to undersupply of professionals for locum doctor jobs Australia.

Though Australia’s current health system is good by world standards - the population is ageing, and we’ve got more people in Australia with chronic and complex health-care needs, with the costs of new medicines and technologies escalating. This has put the future at risk.

These new vacancies for locum medical jobs might take a few years to fill due to the limited supply of permanent local GPs, especially in outback areas. Barham is located within south-western NSW and is approximately 800 kilometres away from the state capital, Sydney. Currently, many rural towns within NSW have a significant amount of vacancies for GPs that the situation has become urgent.

With a shortage of permanent general practitioners in outback areas, these local communities are serviced by specialist medical recruiters such as Ochre Recruitment who ensure locum doctor jobs are always filled. Often fly-in fly-out GPs are rotated on a weekly basis. Locum medical jobs are an adequate solution at this point, and can work well on a temporary basis. However, there is a serious demand to find permanent solutions for medical jobs in Australia.

If you have any inquiries or would like to speak to a member of Ochre Recruitment regarding medical jobs in Australia, then simply contact us today with the provided details.

The author runs a recruitment agency, which offers medical jobs Australia. He is also a frequent blogger who enlightens the readers on locum doctor jobs Australia. Visit https://www.ochrerecruitment.com.au/ for more details.

Take your medical career to the next level with Ochre Recruitment. We provide GP & Specialist, Locum & Permanent Doctor positions in Australia & New Zealand.