Dental News - Calls to streamline Australian immigration policies for healthcare workers

Dental Tribune International

Tue. 16. May 2023

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SYDNEY, Australia: A shortage of healthcare professionals across Australia has prompted a review of the bureaucracy related to recruiting and settling skilled health workers from overseas. The review found that registration and immigration processes for overseas health professionals are slower and more complex than they are in other countries and that the processes can cost up to A$20,000 (€12,300) and take 35 months, even for health professionals from “fast-tracked” countries.

An interim report by federal government reviewers found that the slow and costly process of settling in Australia was discouraging immigration among overseas-trained medical professionals, thereby heightening workforce shortages. Employers told the reviewers that they were losing candidates to employers in countries where processing times were significantly shorter. One employer pointed to neighbouring New Zealand and its average processing time of three months for overseas-trained general practitioners (GPs), stating that the 12 to 21 months required before its overseas-trained GPs are able to work made Australia uncompetitive.

“That was a daily mental struggle because, at the time, you doubt yourself”—Dr Shaily Sharma, Queensland dentist

Dr Shaily Sharma, a dentist who moved to Queensland in 2014 after studying and practising dentistry in India, told the national broadcaster ABC that the system needs to be changed. Dr Sharma said that she had been desperate to work as a dentist when she arrived in Australia but it was more than three years before she gained accreditation to practise. “I was making and cooking meals from home and delivering it to people’s houses, my husband was working in a shop, and he wasn’t getting enough work,” Dr Sharma told the ABC. “That was a daily mental struggle because, at the time, you doubt yourself,” she said.

The ABC reported that there is a national shortage of dentists and dental assistants in Australia and that the Australian Dental Association (ADA) has advocated greater support for international oral health workers who want to practise in the country. ADA Federal President Dr Stephen Liew commented in a submission to the review: “In select countries, we have mutual recognition, so those dentists can have their qualification recognised and recognised quite quickly.” Dr Liew said that this was positive; however, the process for assessing candidates needed to be streamlined. “While that’s very important … [the number of people passing] is quite low and then the barriers, including cost and time, are considerable,” the ABC quoted Liew as saying.

The interim report, which can be accessed here, includes a range of suggestions for improving the application process and reducing red tape, such as offering permanent residence in priority areas to international students and recent graduates, and also to senior clinicians who are often ineligible owing to age restrictions.

The review’s final recommendations are due later this year.