Future Townsville: High-tech training at TAFE plays a crucial role in health sector
Mannequins which tell you how they’re sick, and a TAFE ward that doubles up as a hospital. See inside the high-tech facilities training the people who might one day save your life.
Townsville
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Townsville will need many thousands more healthcare workers by 2040 - but we already have some of the best facilities in the country to train them up.
Walking through the health training wards at TAFE’s Pimlico campus is like stepping into a state-of-the-art hospital. In fact, it was built to double up as a COVID ward if needed during the pandemic — with all the equipment healthcare professionals would need in an emergency.
It also has some technology you wouldn’t see in a hospital.
Most people have seen the classic doctor’s mannequin, with disassembling body parts which can be used to teach what a person’s organs look like on the inside.
Here in Townsville, students work with something a little more futuristic — an electronic mannequin which simulates the symptoms of diseases, which students then have to diagnose.
The mannequins cover infants, babies, geriatric patients, and have silicone skin to give them a scarily lifelike feel. They respond to how the students interact with them, both talking and with their hands.
Fully-upgradeable, software patches for the mannequins can add new ailments. In the past two years alone, they’ve been updated to more accurately model Covid-19 symptoms as the health field learnt more about the disease.
Today, the health sector employs 23,000 people across Townsville — about 20 per cent of the city’s workforce, according to demographer Bernard Salt.
“The healthcare workforce in Townsville over 20 years has been growing at 3 per cent a year and you need about 600 workers per year. So you have a big appetite,” Mr Salt said.
Right now, there are 200 to 300 students getting trained every year there across nursing, primary healthcare for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, and pathology collection.
To meet the healthcare staffing needs of 2040, that number would need to lift to be closer to 1000, especially given some of the workers trained will leave for jobs elsewhere.
There is a pathway to getting there, explains Susan Kinobe, acting general manager of TAFE Queensland North Region.
“We have already seen an influx as part of fee-free TAFE, but we might need to deliver courses differently, including nights and weekends.
“It’s not only for Townsville, but the surrounding communities. Students come from Torres Strait, the Cape, Palm Island, even as far out as Mt Isa.”
There are 37,000 fee-free positions available across Queensland, 10,000 of which have been taken, 10% in North Queensland.
“I’d love for us to have a minimum of 5000 from those places”, Mrs Kenobi said.
Thinking ahead for the shortfalls of the future, the TAFE has added courses on alcohol and drug intervention, mental health, and family intervention. The theory-based learning blends in with the practical courses.
What the TAFE needs is to get employers on board, according to Ms Kenobi.
“We know that there is a skill shortage. The more that we get students through apprenticeships so that they’re getting those practical skills,” she said.
“We’ve had great support from the hospitals and the allied health care services who take our students.”
But the TAFE system contributes to Townsville’s health system beyond just its students in the field. It also trains electricians, plumbers, project managers, cybersecurity and other qualified tradespeople which will be tasked with building the infrastructure the sector needs.
If we want to keep and retain the best health care workers, we also need high-quality chefs and hospitality workers, filling shortfalls in the sectors that make people fall in love with a city.
“Everything is really interconnected, and it’s our job to make sure we provide those skills”, Mrs Kenobi said.
She has her eye on another crucial skill needed for Townsville which could be taught there — emergency and response management training. That would help teach the skills needed to bring people together in a crisis, and make the most of our high-quality health workers.
Like responding to an emergency, getting the most out of our public education and training requires everyone to pull together.
As Mrs Kenobi puts it, “We’ve got a great community, we know that here in Townsville.
“It’s the case of getting people from Charters Towers, to Ayr, our whole entire North Queensland behind it and supporting our future.”
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Originally published as Future Townsville: High-tech training at TAFE plays a crucial role in health sector
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