Only 17 health professionals from Canberra have volunteered to work in Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory with the Remote Area Health Corps since 2008, despite hundreds coming from interstate.
The scheme, which was established in 2008 and is funded by the Department of Health, deploys GPs and registered nurses to remote communities to address shortcomings in primary healthcare.
Since 2008, every Australian state and territory has contributed more health professionals than the ACT with NSW contributing 183 staff and Queensland sending 166.
A total of 23 staff have travelled from Tasmania while 48 – almost triple the ACT number – have come from New Zealand.
RAHC general manager Philip Roberts said the organisation had struggled to understand the lack of involvement from health professionals in the ACT given their level of training and awareness.
“To be perfectly frank, we haven’t been able to put our finger on why this is the case,” he said.
“We have to weigh the ACT figures with the size of the territory’s population but we get more people coming from Tasmania, potentially because there is a hot spot there and people are talking about the program.”
Jill Bestic, a senior lecturer in rural and remote medicine with the Australian National University, has spent 30 weeks in the territory with the program and described it as personally rewarding but professionally challenging.
“It is enormously challenging because it is outside of mainstream medicine and because your are confronted by the plight of the Aboriginal people, the complexity of their health needs and their living standards,” she said.
Ms Bestic said the small number of Canberrans making the trip to the territory could be because of a lack of GPs in the ACT.
“There has been a massive workforce shortage in Canberra and there hasn’t been a pool of people to call on over the years,” she said.
“If you own a practice you have obligations to that so when you don’t have those obligation late in your career you’re more free to do so.”
Mr Roberts said the program allowed health professionals to experience a broader range of challenges and to increase their clinical skills and knowledge.
“It can be very stimulating and they get something back beyond just the opportunity to learn from new experiences,” he said.
Mr Roberts said the program would do everything it could to encourage more ACT health professionals to visit the Northern Territory.
“[We] support health professionals in a number of innovative ways such as providing a suite of free online learning modules, cultural and clinical orientation before the placement, and side-by-side support for new-to-remote health professionals to work with them to make a smooth transition,” he said.
A report released by the Close the Gap campaign this month called for an additional focus on primary healthcare services to enable health professionals to detect, treat and manage chronic conditions such as diabetes and kidney disease.
Minister for Health Susan Ley said the Abbott Government had committed $6.1 million to the RAHC.
“The work of the Remote Area Health Corps in the Northern Territory has improved access to quality health services for Indigenous people living in remote communities,” she said.
“We are committed to closing the gap and to making long-term improvements in Indigenous health through improved access to health services.
The RAHC program is funded until June 30.