

By Aaron Cordy
FIXING the Healthcare manpower shortage is a many-layered problem that needs to be approached from an array of angles to attract, keep and maintain qualified people in rural centres.
Researchers from the University of Melbourne Shepparton, Deakin University, Bentley, WA, and La Trobe University, Bendigo, have combined their skills and knowledge into a study aimed at building support to help mature-aged rural students into healthcare.
Dr Claire Quilliam, The University of Melbourne along with Dr Nicole Crawford, Deakin University, and Carol McKinstry, La Trobe, looked at the rural pipeline approach of recruiting rural people into health professions, educating them in their communities so they can join the workforce.
“With current rural health workforce approaches, there is a big emphasis on retention because we focus on recruiting people from outside rural communities,” said Dr Quilliam.


“So, you have to get them here, then you have to work to keep them here because they don’t have those deep connections with the community; they don’t have close friends or strong connections with social groups. It takes years to develop those relationships, and in my mind, that’s a lot of work that has to go into retaining people. Or we can go with building opportunities for developing the rural pipeline and supporting rural people who already have a sense of belonging in their community or nearby communities. They get their qualifications done and they stay in their community because that’s where they have that belonging.”
Mature-aged students face different challenges than students straight out of high school, so the study focused on how best to support them. The researchers used surveys, interviews, and focus groups across three rural campuses to develop a comprehensive description of each case from multiple perspectives. Participants included professional and academic staff working at the campuses, mature-aged students enrolled in nursing or allied health courses, and placement supervisors.
The researchers found that most of the support for mature-aged students comes from the student’s home life, or informally from campus staff. While these types of supports are great, a lack of specific supports for this cohort driven by the campus can leave students at risk of dropping out when family and life commitments outside of study demand their attention. And it was clear there needs to be an array of support services tailored to meet the needs of mature-aged students with their own challenges.
“We need to support rural campuses to think through how they’re going to support this cohort. Mature-aged students made up over 50 per cent of nursing and allied health student cohorts on these rural campuses. We don’t want them withdrawing because it’s too hard,” said Dr Quilliam.