(Featured image: Photograph looking out of window from inside Dr Demetrios Kourdoulos’ office at Thompson Road Clinic, Cranbourne North. Tara Clifford 2025)
The number of Victoria’s healthcare professionals appears to be constantly growing, but is the workforce growing fast enough to keep pace with Victoria’s population growth?
Between 2021 and 2031, the age structure forecasts for Victoria indicate a 36.3 per cent increase in the population of those in retirement age.
Those working in Victoria may have to work for increasingly longer periods. Many of those already working in the healthcare system are reconsidering their pathways.
Professor Jane Mills, Dean of Latrobe Rural Health School, says that universities are now having to graduate more nurses to fill one equivalent full-time role.
“We are seeing some really… significant trends, that means we’ve got less workforce available to try and meet healthcare service need.”
Workforce shortages and growing demand are already hitting the system hard.
However, workers are now dropping the length of time they spend in the profession due to the favoured prominent work-life balance lifestyle.
“When registered nurses get to about seven years post-graduation, they start to think about actually changing careers. They start to have thoughts about their intention to leave the profession,” Professor Jane Mills says.
Jane and experts suggest that there should be greater efforts to keep current staff and those studying interested in the prospects of continuing to work in the healthcare system.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners’ ‘Health of the Nation’ survey from April/May 2024 found that nearly one-third (32 per cent) of current GPs are planning to cease practice within the next five years.
Some already in the workforce believe empty promises, such as funding increases, are one of the many reasons older practitioners are making the tough decision to leave the practice.
Dr Demetrios Kourdoulos has spent nearly 30 years as a general practitioner and is now seeing patients at Thompson Road Clinic.
He says, “The main concern, I think, is for the health of general practice“, and that “There’ve been a lot of promises made about funding and the cost of general practice, but I see a fragmentation of the health system…which I think could be a problem in the future”.
The RACGP Health of the Nation survey highlighted the factors influencing current GPs to consider no longer practising.
The most recognised issues were having to maintain regulatory and compliance burdens, no longer feeling that GPs are valued, and nearing an age they no longer want to work.
Although the government has already implemented free nursing study initiatives, including other specialties such as midwifery, as well as free and government-funded healthcare courses, there are only a limited number of people who can pursue such pathways.
Victoria’s growing and aging population cannot halt growth despite the healthcare workforce facing significant staff shortages.
