Qld doctor numbers: 2025 critical for training of health staff

A strike team has been established amid warning hundreds of emergency doctors must begin training in 2025 to meet demands.

AMAQ president Dr Nick Yim

The state’s peak medical body has set up a special strike team to tackle the healthcare workforce crisis, with the warning that hundreds of emergency doctors must begin training this year to meet demand.

The Australian Medical Association Queensland Council has established a Workforce Working Group which is due to commence this month.

The members have been tasked with providing advice on responses to government policy proposals to train, attract and retain workers.

The AMAQ warns that the state needs at least 235 more emergency doctors to start training in the next 12 months, along with 2000 more First Nations health workers and 2000 more community mental health staff in the next 10 years.

AMAQ president Nick Yim said: “As the general-practice workforce continues to decline, the Australian government is estimating a shortage of 8600 GPs by 2048.

“We estimate this number is closer to 10,000 by 2032.

“But all future recruitment must be based on the government’s promised data and needs-based workforce plan.

“We cannot continue to waste precious health dollars on proposals that do not put doctors, nurses and other health professionals where they are needed most.”

Any plan to expand the use of physician’s assistants, or “fake doctors” as they have been labelled, will be on the taskforce’s agenda, as the AMAQ doubles down against the use of the assistants to plug gaps in hospitals.

“It is clear that (Queensland Health) director-general David Rosengren recognises the critical need to bolster the medical workforce but we are concerned about some of the proposed approaches to do so,” Dr Yim said.

“The AMAQ has been involved in discussions with Queensland Health about the potential risks for patient safety and the impact on our medical workforce due to the use of physician’s assistants.

“Physician’s assistants are not a substitute for medical officers, and we have opposed the proposal in our communications with Queensland Health until we can access the workforce data and clinical evidence that supports such a proposal.”

Six physician’s assistants are currently employed across the state. They are allowed to prescribe certain medications and order some tests.

The AMAQ and the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union are concerned about potential risks to patient safety.

“We are also concerned that there is no current training system within Australia to produce physician’s assistants, and we would be recruiting an unknown skill set that is not registered nor regulated by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency,” Dr Yim said.