The News sat down with Goulburn Valley Health chief executive Matt Sharp for a discussion about the depth of the health service’s jobs crisis, what it means for the community and how he hopes to fix it.
Goulburn Valley Health is short 580 staff members at a vacancy rate of 21 per cent, putting strain on workers across the region, who are forced to work extra shifts, and causing GV Health to cut services.
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GV Health chief executive Matt Sharp said the staff shortage was “fairly extraordinary”, and had been an ongoing issue for half a decade.
He said it would likely take another two or three years minimum to get back to a normal vacancy rate of two or three per cent.
GV Health had 300 vacancies at the beginning of the pandemic, and that figure has only grown in the past three years.
Most of the vacancies are across sites in Shepparton.
“I’m not aware that there’s any other health service of a similar size to ours at GV Health which has such a high vacancy rate,” Mr Sharp said.
Where GV Health’s 580 missing roles are Goulburn Valley Health’s job vacancies
580 total missing workers
110 doctors
260 nurses
80 cleaning, catering and support staff
65 administration and management roles
65 allied health, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and pharmacists
Part of that growth has been due to staff departing and GV Health being unable to replace them, while increased capacity of the hospital — including the new emergency department — has increased the number of positions needed.
Mr Sharp acknowledged the “terrific work” done by staff over a prolonged period of time, with the pandemic one of the most difficult times to work in healthcare in the past century.
“Like anyone else, staff are human and it’s normal to become fatigued over a period of time,” he said.
Mr Sharp said while making life harder for staff, roster shortages meant GV Health often had to reduce services across the organisation or close beds.
“That puts pressure back on other parts of our organisation in terms of the emergency department being not as able to see patients as quickly because there are more people in there waiting for inpatient beds,” he said.
GV Health also has to heavily rely on temporary or locum workers, to ensure it has enough staff.
Locum workers are more expensive, and also require accommodation.
Temporary workers, while allowing sections of the organisation to stay operational, also cost patients continuity of care by increasing the number of medical professionals dealing with those needing care.
It also meant bringing in workers who were unfamiliar with GV Health’s systems, Mr Sharp said.
Mr Sharp said there were two main barriers to recruitment in Shepparton: the inability of new recruits to find accommodation in the region, and medical professionals’ difficulty in securing their desired school placements for their children.
He said some medical professionals, especially younger people, wanted townhouse or apartment living, of which there was very little in Shepparton, while school availability was more of a barrier for people with families.
“Generally, the accommodation we can assist them with, but then when they start to look into schools, they’re unable to get their children into the schools that they would prefer to send their kids to,” he said.
“In recent times I think we’ve lost probably four or five doctors because they’ve not been able to get their children into the school that they would choose.
“That’s not a criticism of the schools themselves, it’s more just a reflection of, of the demand that exists (across the state) and the choice people have.”
GV Health does have accommodation options for staff, managing some 40 or 50 properties for its workers, but still requires more.
Mr Sharp said he did not believe GV Health’s reputation among health service professionals was a barrier to recruitment.
Both federal and Victorian governments have committed to funding and training more nurses and doctors across the state, with Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas saying 1000 positions had been filled across the state recently.
It has not changed the situation on the ground in the Goulburn Valley, with the health service shedding more workers across the past five years than it has gained, as well as having more capacity — and thus empty positions — due to facility upgrades.
Mr Sharp said there had not been a major factor contributing to staff leaving, with retirements and people shifting into other careers the main reasons.
He said vaccine mandates had forced fewer than 15 people to move on from a workforce of nearly 3000 people.
GV Health held an open day on Wednesday, March 29, to try to fill some of the support staff roles, but the clinical roles will be trickier to fill.
Mr Sharp said he was under no illusion it would be a quick or easy fix.
Returning to the well of overseas-trained workers was something GV Health has tried since borders reopened, with up to 70 per cent of its workers trained overseas or interstate, compared to 30 per cent or less for some metropolitan health services.
International recruitment is something GV Health will continue.
“It’s relatively tricky, but again, it’s timely and it costs money but we have got no choice but to invest in, in building our own capability to be able to support people who are immigrating,” Mr Sharp said.
However, Mr Sharp said retention of staff was also a big focus now, with perks such as massages and free food, but also smaller acknowledgements.
“Like people have had a really rough day, just recognition of that through a coffee or massages and a range of things like other workplaces are doing to show that support for their staff,” he said.
Longer term, GV Health is looking for support to upgrade the rest of the hospital — stage two of the redevelopment — as well as the crucial clinical health school.
While the Coalition and La Trobe University committed to funding a clinical health school in Shepparton ahead of last year’s Federal Election, Labor has not pledged any funding since it was elected in May.
“The one thing that we’re really keen to get support from, from probably the Federal Government, is the clinical health school project,” Mr Sharp said.
“That’s a really important one for us to have a local and reliable pathway for young people in our region to see that they don’t have to go away to complete their training.
“We’ve got the land available. We’ve got the design done. We’ve got the business case being reviewed at the moment.”
For now, though, GV Health and its employees are soldiering on.
“If I did have a magic wand, that would be the one thing that I would really love to be able to change is to have us at the right level of staffing that we were planning to,” Mr Sharp said.
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