Yvette D'Ath and Annastacia Palaszczuk at a press conference yesterday.(AAP: Darren England)
It was enough spin to make onlookers giddy.
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and her Health Minister Yvette D'Ath called a news conference yesterday to spruik exciting news – the recruitment of more than 800 new intern doctors and 200 ambulance officers for the health sector.
Given the state is in the grip of a major health workforce crisis, Queenslanders who are unaware of how the health system works may have been dupedby the so-called breaking news that hundreds more interns were about to bolster the ranks.
The reality is, while this is thelargest intake ever and a spike of 5per cent over 2022 numbers, Queensland Health normally employs nearly all medicalstudents who graduate from local universities each year.
Followers of Ms Palaszczuk on Twitter were quick to call the premier out when she posted her breaking announcement yesterday morning.
Dr Suresh Khirwadkar replied: Isn't this just interns that would normally start this time each year anyway?
And opposition health spokeswoman Ros Bates, a former nurse, tweeted: What the Premier isn't saying in this shiny tweet is that this happens every year and it's actually business as usual. In fact the grads started two weeks ago.
The record employment of interns will have little bearing on what's at the heart of Queensland's health workforce crisis right now – the state does not have enough experienced doctors where they are needed most – outside the south-east corner.
As is custom, the new interns will be deployed in hospitals across the state – from Cairns in the far north to the Gold Coast in the south and west to Mount Isa.
The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital will train 94 intern doctors this year, the highest intake of any facility, ahead of the Gold Coast University Hospital (92), the Princess Alexandra Hospital (89), Townsville University Hospital (80) and the Sunshine Coast University Hospital (72).
No doubt, each year's intern intake is an investment into the health system of the future. But these are not the doctors with enough experience to deliver a baby unsupervised or perform complex surgery. That takes many years of training beyond graduating with a medical degree.
That's why Gladstone, a central Queensland city of 62,000 people, has not had a fully functioning birthing service since mid-last year.
It's why Biloela Hospital is also on a birthing bypass and why many regional Queenslanders travel hundreds of kilometres to larger centres for elective surgery and other key healthcare needs.
How will the new interns alleviate hospital workforce shortages and what is the Palaszczuk government doing to plug the gaps?
Despite weeks of intense scrutiny about health workforce shortages in Queensland, the minister had no answers to journalists' questions about how many doctors had left Queensland Health in the past year.
I'll get the accurate figures, I don't want to just guess, she said.
Retention is as big an issue as attraction. We know that.
There's people leaving the profession because they're tired, they're burnt out.
The ABC has been asking questionsof Queensland Health about doctor shortages across the state, specifically which regions are the worst affected and which medical specialties are in the shortest supply.
Other than being told that Queensland Health had 270.8full-time equivalent medical officer vacancies as at January 22 this year — equating to 2.29 per cent of the department's medical officer workforce — it's been impossible to obtain the more detailed information.
Ms D'Ath was unable to shed any further light on Queensland figures when questioned at yesterday's news conference, quoting overseas data instead.
There is a shortage of health workers across the nation and across the globe, she said.
We know the National Health Service in the UK have 96,000 vacancies. That is extraordinary. At the same time, we're reaching out to UK health workers saying come work in Australia.
It is a challenge.
Specialist doctors are also being poached by other health services.
I saw a report only yesterday — $1 million being offered to a specialist. I mean, that's extraordinary, Ms D'Ath said.
Extraordinary, yes. But it's equally extraordinary that the government has not provided transparency on arguably the most important political issue in the state – Queenslanders' health.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-31/qld-health-announcement-dath-palaszczuk-doctors-hospitals/101908502
