More than 26,000 recently retired doctors and nurses will be able to fill in for healthcare workers furloughed due to COVID-19 in a bid to keep the health system operating as the country learns to live with the virus.
The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) responded to requests from state and territory governments for more assistance by altering the conditions on the pandemic response sub-register today.
The sub-register was created last April to allow recently retired medical practitioners,including midwives,pharmacists and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health practitioners,to register their interest in joining a surge workforce to help with the vaccine rollout.
Ahpra’s chief executive Martin Fletcher said the sub-register had been updated to reflect the changing COVID-19 situation.
“We are responding to requests from governments for more registered health practitioners while also ensuring that patient safety remains an important focus,” he said.
“We have expanded their temporary registration to allow for ‘practice for the COVID-19 response’,rather than being limited to the ‘COVID-19 vaccination rollout’ as has been the case to date.”
Those on the sub-register can fill gaps in the workforce where staff have been stood down as close contacts of COVID-19 cases,or fill clinical or non-clinical roles directly related to the pandemic response including assisting with the vaccination rollout.
NSW Health supported the decision to expand the register. The state’s health ministry has also recently moved to allow previously registered health professionals,including nurses,who had retired or whose registration lapsed between three and 10 years ago to work in vaccination hubs.
Thousands of hospital workers have been taken out of the workforce following COVID-19 exposures in wards,emergency departments and theatres over the course of NSW’s outbreak.
On September 1,data from the NSW government’s Agency for Clinical Innovation showed 1429 healthcare workers were in isolation,up from 1273 the previous week.
In Victoria,staff at Peninsula Private Hospital and the Alfred are also furloughed.
There are 7641 medical practitioners on the sub-register in NSW,6458 in Victoria,5531 in Queensland and 2936 in WA.