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Excerpt from Croakey Health Media referencing VAHPA Radiation Therapist survey and quotes from VAHPA Assistant Secretary John Ryan; Medical radiation sciences: addressing workforce pressures, cultural safety and quality of care.
Introduction by Croakey: Workforce pressures amid a global shortage in medical radiation sciences were among big issues discussed at the recent Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy (ASMIRT) conference in Sydney.
Marie McInerney writes: Workforce shortages in the medical radiation sciences in Australia and globally have put the profession in a “state of stress” which risks further depleting numbers and is pitting jurisdictions against each other, clinical and union leaders in the sector have recently reported.
Delegates at the Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy (ASMIRT) Conference heard that an existing global shortage of radiation therapists and nuclear medical technologists had been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought additional stress and moral injury and disrupted student placements and capability.
The concerns have been underscored by a recent survey of 319 radiation therapists (RTs) in Victoria, where government wage ceilings have been particularly tough compared to other states and territories, only lifted last month to three percent from a 1.5 percent cap.
The survey, conducted by the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA) and released to Croakey, revealed that more than 60 percent of the RTs surveyed wanted at least a 50 percent pay rise, and barely any (3.2 percent) felt their wages and entitlements reflected their roles and responsibilities compared to other health professions.
Worryingly, between 50 and 60 percent of 258 RTs reported having considered leaving the public healthcare sector, leaving the state to work elsewhere, and/or leaving the profession entirely.
“These are big numbers,” said John Ryan, Assistant Secretary of the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA). Victorian public sector employers and the State Government would have to act early to address the issue, he added.
“They can’t say ‘wait till the next EBA’ (enterprise bargaining agreement), which is not until 2026,” he told Croakey.
Ryan pointed to much higher levels of renumeration in other states, particularly in Queensland which last week announced further incentives for interstate and overseas medical practitioners to move there.
He said that a base grade radiation therapist in Queensland currently receives $145,130 a year (wages plus allowances) compared with $84,984 in Victoria, a difference of around $60,000. A similar difference applies to the earnings of the higher level charge radiation therapists in Queensland vs Victoria, he said.
“We’re seeing from the survey that people are thinking of getting out now,” Ryan said of the Victorian sector, warning that the state will struggle to attract others from interstate and internationally to “fill the void”.
Among comments in the survey from respondents were concerns at the disparity in Victorian pay rates particularly with Queensland, saying it was unfair there was not a national rate.
“I know that the majority of long-term staff at my centre are considering leaving the profession. Myself included,” said one participant.
ASMIRT president Carolyn Heyes, who is a paediatric radiographer at The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, said she was “not at all” surprised by the survey results, characterising the medical radiation sciences in Australia as being “in a state of stress” due to continual shortages.
“People are stretched,” she said, talking about one major service, which she could not identify, that currently had 20 vacancies in a team of 60.
Shortages meant people were having to work to capacity at all time. “You don’t get any downtime, because patients don’t stop getting sick because you’ve got someone missing,” she told Croakey.
This also disrupts efforts to advance careers or skills, she said, including contributing to the need for more medical radiation sciences research, also a focus of the conference.
Heyes said ASMIRT has met with universities to try to boost graduate numbers, with numbers down last year to 647 from 1,100 ten years ago. The universities reported that courses were now fuller but are struggling to set up enough student placements, she said.
“If you’re 20 staff down, you don’t have the people to supervise (students),” she said. “It’s a vicious circle.”
The extent of that problem was highlighted in a presentation at the conference on the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on the clinical education of Australian medical radiation science students, which reported on a national survey last year of 55 clinical educators in medical imaging and radiation therapy.
The respondents reported that 65 percent of first year students and 61 percent of second year students had lost more than a quarter of their clinical placements during COVID. Nearly one in six educators (58 percent) reported that their students were “underprepared to enter the workforce”.
In an earlier article, Professor Geoff Currie, Professor in Nuclear Medicine at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, told Croakey there was also a “chronic shortage” of nuclear medicine technologists/scientists in Australia.
“We are graduating across the country less than half the number of students annually than required to fill job vacancies,” he said, adding there has been a push to bring people out of retirement or recruit internationally to fill local “voids”.