Supporting global workforce sustainability

RACS Global Health has been supporting Indo-Pacific clinical partners to build the clinical capacity of healthcare workers as a means of strengthening health systems and improving service delivery for more than 25 years. Patient access to safe and affordable health care improves by building clinical capacity.

We contribute to clinical capacity development in our region in myriad of ways. One of our key approaches is to deploy Visiting Medical Teams (VMTs). These volunteer teams build vital clinical capacity through on-the-job training and mentoring local teams, while also creating an immediate and positive health outcome for patients through the surgical procedures they conduct.

Through the DFAT-funded Pacific Islands Program, RACS VMTs conducted nearly 2000 surgeries and performed 6527 patient consultations. Our VMTs donate their valuable time, skills, and experience to work intensively and collaboratively, with Indo-Pacific clinical partners to provide surgical procedures that patients may not be able to access locally. COVID-19 has further exacerbated surgical backlogs in the Pacific with some patients having waited for more than two years for surgery. VMTs will also find time for more structured training once all planned procedures have been completed. The work of the VMTs has an important dual focus on direct service delivery and clinical capacity development.

Through its various programs, RACS Global Health also supports online webinars and training, face-to-face short courses conducted by Australian, Aotearoa New Zealand and local faculty, and longer-term study at the post graduate level. As an example, RACS Global Health has been supporting cohorts of Pacific nurses to study for a Post graduate Certificate in Perioperative Nursing, through the Australian College of Nursing. One of the nurses who graduated in 2022 described the opportunity and the training as “life-changing”.

One of our key strategies is to build the training capacity of local faculties so that clinical training is localised and sustainable. RACS Global Health, the PNG Advanced Paediatric Life Support (APLS) faculty, and APLS Australia have been collaborating on providing the suite of APLS training, which includes the Generic Instructor Course. There are now 16 instructors in the PNG faculty qualified to train other clinicians.

While this has taken a long-term commitment by all involved, APLS training in PNG will soon be able to be conducted entirely by the PNG faculty. This will ensure that more clinicians will have access to this valuable training, which builds their skills to treat and care for seriously ill and injured children. The paediatric workforce will continue to be strengthened by a cohort of highly competent and committed APLS instructors.

RACS Global Health also works collaboratively with regional bodies such as the Pacific Islands Operating Room Nursing Association and the South Pacific Community to develop clinical resources and to improve clinical practice and patient care. In 2022, our collaborative work resulted in the publication and launch of Standards for Perioperative Nursing in Pacific Island Countries and Territories

These are only a few examples of the multi-pronged and collaborative approach that RACS Global Health adopts to contribute to sustainable health workforce development in the IndoPacific region.