Allied health professionals are vital to keeping people healthy, and reducing pressure and cost on our health system.
But NSW needs to pay a competitive wage to attract and retain them.
Alarming staff shortages and increasing turnover rates of allied health professionals are making the path back to good health much harder for NSW residents.
About the campaign
Staff shortages mean fewer appointments and more delays for patients. They mean missed scans, delayed mental health care, and patients falling through the cracks.
And not only do staff shortages lead directly to adverse patient care outcomes, they increase stress for allied health professionals, leading to burn-out, more professionals leaving their roles, and the problem spiralling still further.
Here’s where patients are being affected:
Diagnostics
Radiation Therapists
Linear accelerators don’t have enough trained radiation therapists to staff them, which means cancer patients are now waiting longer for lifesaving radiotherapy, risking disease progression
Radiographers
Understaffed imaging suites means delays for CT/X-ray results, keeping emergency and surgical patients in beds an extra half day longer on average
Sonographers
Too many women in regional NSW can’t get an ultrasound – putting them and their babies at risk
Therapy & Ongoing Care
Physiotherapists
Fewer ward physios means fewer mobility assessments, which is adding an extra day in hospital before patients can be discharged, at huge and needless cost to the system
Social Workers
Community mental-health caseloads are up 25% per social worker, which means expensive psych beds remain blocked since patients can’t be discharged until a plan is in place to look after them. Meanwhile, family-violence cases are waiting weeks for a social worker to be assigned.
Psychologists
Public hospital outpatient waitlists are stretching past six months, forcing people in crisis back to the ED, and lifting acute admissions