Foreign-born health workers in Australia: an analysis of census data
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RESEARCH
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Foreign-born health workers in Australia: an analysis of census data Joel Negin1*, Aneuryn Rozea1, Ben Cloyd2 and Alexandra LC Martiniuk1,3,4
Abstract Background: Provide an up-to-date national picture of the medical, midwifery and nursing workforce distribution in Australia with a focus on overseas immigration and on production sustainability challenges. Methods: Using 2006 and 2011 Australian census data, analysis was conducted on medical practitioners (doctors) and on midwifery and nursing professionals. Results: Of the 70,231 medical practitioners in Australia in 2011, 32,919 (47.3%) were Australian-born, with the next largest groups bring born in South Asia and Southeast Asia. In 2006, 51.9% of medical practitioners were born in Australia. Of the 239,924 midwifery and nursing professionals in Australia, 127,911 (66.8%) were born in Australia, with the next largest groups being born in the United Kingdom and Ireland and in Southeast Asia. In 2006, 69.8% of midwifery and nursing professionals were born in Australia. Western Australia has the highest percentage of foreign-born health workers. There is a higher percentage of Australia-born health workers in rural areas than in urban areas (82% of midwifery and nursing professional in rural areas are Australian-born versus 59% in urban areas). Of the 15,168 additional medical practitioners in Australia between the 2006 and 2011 censuses, 10,452 (68.9%) were foreign-born, including large increases from such countries as India, Nepal, Philippines, and Zimbabwe. We estimate that Australia has saved US$1.7 billion in medical education costs through the arrival of foreign-born medical practitioners over the past five years. Conclusions: The Australian health system is increasingly reliant on foreign-born health workers. This raises questions of medical education sustainability in Australia and on Australia’s recruitment from countries facing critical shortages of health workers. Keywords: Australia, Doctors, Health workforce, Migration, Nurses
Background The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there is a global shortfall of more than 2 million doctors, nurses and midwives to meet the minimum recommended density [1]. This shortage of human resources for health negatively impacts health outcomes [2] with local shortages worsened by the migration of health workers from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to high-income countries [3]. The WHO World Health Report of 2006 calculated that 25% of doctors and 5% of nurses trained in African countries were working in high-income countries [1]. For instance, in the United States of America, 25% of * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
physicians trained overseas – 64% of them in LMICs – as well as 4% of nurses [4]. High-income countries often actively recruit overseas-trained health workers, with a study in the United Kingdom finding that 41%
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