More investment is needed to encourage rural residents to pursue a career in health, an advocacy organisation says, to help address growing demand for services across the country.
Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health (SARRAH) chief executive Cath Maloney said the majority of allied health professionals delivering services in regional areas were born and raised there.
"The evidence tells us if you are from a rural background to begin with, you are far more likely to want to come and work in rural and remote Australia," she said.
"But there's no plans in place to encourage rural people to study in the health professions."
Growing up in South Australia's Mallee region, Jasmin Przibilla was not even aware of the career path she would eventually pursue.
It was not until moving to Adelaide and starting a Bachelor of Psychological Science that she learnt about speech pathology and what it could offer.
"I did some research into it and thought, 'This is something that is going to benefit my community and the wider community'," Ms Przibilla said.
She is now taking her skills back home to support her local region, opening an expression of interest for her services in the wider Mallee region.
"Growing up in Pinnaroo I know firsthand how hard it is to get health services, so it's always been something I've wanted to do, to give back in any way I can," Ms Przibilla said.
"Especially in the southern mallee where we've struggled to have doctors on time … providing that extra level of healthcare service, I think, would really benefit the community."
More investment required
Ms Maloney said demand for speech pathologists and other allied health professions was increasing.
She said while there was government support to help improve access to these services in regional and rural Australia, greater funding was needed to bridge the gap.
Ms Maloney said SARRAH was trialling a new model to train allied health assistants that could facilitate the ongoing care plans created by practitioners in different fields, like speech pathologists.
The process will help to reduce the workload on trained practitioners and allow more face-to-face engagement for clients.
"We're talking about 30 trial sites across the country when what we need to address the significant workforce shortages … is to really scale these projects to deliver them more broadly across regional Australia," Ms Maloney said.
"The work we are doing is just a drop in a very large bucket.
"There's a lot more investment required to get the people with the right skills to deliver services to rural and remote Australia."
