Australian Government launches billboard campaign to recruit Irish healthcare staff

The Australian Government has initiated a billboard campaign near Irish hospitals seeking to recruit healthcare staff abroad as part of their pandemic recovery plan.

Unions have said that unless steps are taken to improve the working conditions for those in the sector, there will continue to be an exodus of Irish hospital workers abroad.

The signs state that Victoria, Australia is “now recruiting healthcare workers”. There is also a web address for a jobs section at Australia’s Department of Health.

“Join the community,” it says, noting the advertisement is “authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne, Australia”.

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Under the Victorian Department of Health’s pandemic repair plan, more than $80 million has been allocated to deliver an additional 400 perioperative nurses, upskill 1,000 nurses and theatre technicians, and recruit up to 2,000 ex-pat and international healthcare workers through a global workforce recruitment drive.

The number of healthcare workers emigrating to Australia is an ongoing concern for the Irish Government, as it creates staff shortages in the State’s healthcare system.

Figures from the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) in May found 402 doctors emigrated to Australia in the first five months of the year, up from 272 in 2019.

A spokesman for the IMO said the advertising will come as “no surprise to Government or the HSE”.

“Emigration levels are increasing year on year as many doctors, and other healthcare workers, leave Ireland to work in health systems that value, respect and support them,” he said.

“We have warned for years that Government must recognise the toxic working conditions, the unsustainable hours and the pressures that our doctors are experiencing as they try to deliver patient care in a system that is under-resourced across all settings.”

A spokeswoman for the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said its own surveys suggest that many nurse and midwife graduates intend to leave Ireland.

“Our members are currently overburdened and overworked in their workplaces, they are telling us that they are not willing to put up with another winter in intolerable conditions, with many voting with their feet and leaving the profession altogether,” she said.

To ensure young healthcare workers see Ireland as a viable place to work and thrive, the Government must do more to “reduce the cost of living near the large hospitals in Dublin, Cork and Galway, including tackling rising rent costs”, she added.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said retention of healthcare workers was a “priority”, with retention efforts in place both national and locally, which provide “significant career development and progression”.

Meanwhile, a healthcare conference has heard that up to 40 per cent more GPs are needed to resolve a “massive workforce crisis” in the profession here.

Government plans to extend free GP care to children aged seven and eight will require the appointment of an additional 120 family doctors, said Dr Diarmuid Quinlan, medical director of the Irish College of General Practitioners.

Dr Quinlan said the workforce crisis in general practice was driven partly by a growing population. There was also a new layer of work generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, such vaccination and the treatment of chronic conditions, he said.

The extension of free GP care to children aged seven and eight will result in additional 750,000 consultations nationally, he told the annual St Luke’s symposium organised by the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland.