In some of Australia’s rural communities, doctors are waiting months or even years on waitlists for childcare.
Rural Australia’s workforce issues extend far beyond medicos, with the rural GP college warning government that the dearth of childcare options is preventing doctors from moving out of the cities or from working to their maximum capacity.
At the same time, ACRRM said, support for rural education infrastructure should be predicated on quality, rather than as a mechanism to ensure practitioners were working their maximum hours.
In its submission to a senate inquiry on the state of Australia’s early childhood education and care system in rural, regional, and remote communities, ACRRM said it had heard from one member who faced a two-year waitlist for prep and another whose child was on a kindy waitlist for 10 months, only to be denied access.
“These wait times are increasing clinicians’ overall stress, therefore affecting their health and wellbeing,” it said.
“Lack of access to childhood education and care is resulting in members seeking fewer or modified working hours than they would prefer or are able to do.
“The College also raises concerns around the strains that this is impacting the frontline workers across a range of professions, including those in the health system and the infrastructure investments needed in these communities being identified.”
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Because of the limited number of practitioners in rural communities, ACRRM said, one person having to adjust their work hours often had a ripple effect which meant that more resources were needed to facilitate adequate care.
“The limited supply of early education is deterring necessary workers, including the needed additional health practitioners from moving to remote areas, therefore straining community health and the overall efficiency of the health system,” the submission read.
At the same time, the college said, childcare options needed to be high quality.
“Our members in the workplace and the community have explicitly expressed that the education system isn’t a mechanism to ensure practitioners are working their maximum hours,” it said.
“Rather, the education system should help build a sense of community and culture not just for the parent but also for the child being raised.”
The federal government’s ‘In Home Care’ program funds early childhood educators to deliver care in a family’s home if they cannot access care in the wider community due to non-standard work hours or geographic isolation.
ACRRM noted that IHC educators working in remote or very remote areas can access an exemption to the minimum qualification criteria.
“ACRRM raises the concern that rural generalists should have access to the same quality of childhood education as their urban counterparts,” it said.
“Improving overall education quality can increase attraction to, and retention of workers, in rural and remote communities.”
Read ACRRM’s full submission here.
