Australian Defence Force suffers from shortage of medical officers

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDNov 11 2010

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) is battling with a shortage of medical officers, and is looking to recruit at least 200 health and medical personnel to fill the gap for current and future needs. According to Captain Julian Fidge, “I am certain the ADF have an enormous shortage of their specialist service officers despite recruiting many valuable, gifted applicants. These people are basically run out of the Army or the Navy through poor treatment…I worked alongside one of the civilian contractors and I had significant difficulties accepting their level of health care, their provision of health care, and so did my medics.”

The ADF admits there is a shortage of “some health professionals across the services” and “this is particularly the case for medical officers”. A spokesman said, “Defence is no different to the wider Australian community in that it faces challenges in recruiting and retaining all types of medical and allied health professionals, including medical officers, nurses and dentists… Where a shortfall of medical officers is identified, i.e. medical practitioners in full-time permanent military service, Defence engages a combination of civilians and contracted solutions.”

ADF’s most senior medical officer, Major General Paul Alexander however denies any shortage and assures that the armed forces are still receiving the care they need. He added, “In total we have over 4,000 healthcare providers within Defence and they are certainly sufficient to support our current operations and any contingencies.” Major General Alexander says he is also very pleased with the level of service provided by private health contractors who also earn considerably more than their uniformed colleagues.

In Australian Defence there are approximately 102 fully qualified medical officers and a further 157 under training. The total number of doctors, nurses and other allied health professionals in the ADF is 4,274, of these 658 are nurses. The ADF is embarking on a new strategy to recruit and train medical personnel.