The state government is expanding Victoria’s healthcare workforce, which has recruited more than 1200 doctors, nurses, midwives, and allied health professionals from abroad through the international recruitment campaign.
Late last year, the state government launched an international recruitment campaign targeting overseas healthcare workers and promoting Victoria as a great place to live and work. The campaign has been a success, with 980 new staff now working at a metropolitan hospital and 261 in regional Victoria.
Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas visited the Royal Melbourne Hospital last week to meet some of the 1241 international healthcare workers, including Australian healthcare workers returning home.
“These numbers confirm that Victoria isn’t just a great place to live – it’s one of the world’s best places to work and build a career in healthcare,” Ms Thomas said.
“We’re recruiting doctors, nurses and allied health workers to take pressure off our healthcare system and get every Victorian the care they need, as soon as they need it.”
Now working across 40 health services in both metro Melbourne and regional Victoria, new healthcare recruits have helped hospitals grow their ranks, ease pressure on the existing workforce, helped bring down surgery waitlists, reduced workloads in emergency departments and ensured patients receive care as fast as possible.
While doctors and nurses make up the majority of the new workforce, positions in allied health and other healthcare services have also been filled.
These additional healthcare workers are some of more than 26,500 extra healthcare workers who have joined the state’s public health system since 2014..
The $270 million investment to make nursing and midwifery free to study, and recruit and train 17,000 nurses and midwives in addition to major investments into the state’s hospitals, including investing $5-6 billion for upgrades at the RMH and the Royal Women’s Hospital and a brand-new medical precinct in the new suburb of Arden are further measures introduced to support Victoria’s healthcare workforce alongside the international recruitment campaign.
