What is community engagement?

John you said above, "Workforce shortfalls are a fallacy really. I agree. "It has been created by governments", governement who miss the point when it comes to the value of national and state innovation and research, or as you said governments, " that do not provide sufficient study options and deliberate underfunding."

I believe it is a failure in Australia's understanding of Sustainable Development. I believe this is because It is a Under-Development.

If there is one thing I am truely proud of in Queensland. It is the UN-Brisbane Declaration policy for "Community Engagement" 2005 signed last Augest.

This is because of the polices such as LA21 are bound through Agenda 21 (World Summits New York 2005 updated from RIo 1992). This policy is strategic, it is a deveopmental economic policy which now stands as a UN policy which highlights on the value of "community engagement", and the necessity of "civic participation through the help of NGO representaions, and focus on ground level engagement..

We need health and employment to be present in community.

I've just joined and read this article and appreciate all the comments. Sadly as is always the case with nurses and Qld Health there is little real discussion. I wonder why that would be? There is very little in Gay's article that makes real sense to me as an RN suspended from the workplace due to criminal allegations from ex-colleagues and facing the criminal justice system for the first time. A system I might mention here which is as inefficient as Qld Health. The bottom line is that we nurses have been screwed for years by the government and because of our "culture" have allowed it. We're are all the voices from the struggling?

The AMA is the most powerful union in OZ. It is time they take some responsibility for the shortage of doctors as they help set the quota for students. It is the current climate of user pays that is really threatening, not only in health services but also in training the next generation.
Hands up those of you who have been to a not too bright doctor and wondered how they managed to pass (Australian drs too). Full fee payment for uni places are going to deliver us more poor quality, but wealthy, doctors.
Nursing training needs to be taken back into the hospitals, at least in a sandwich uni hospital course. Hospital training of nurses means that the student nurses are paid while they study and contribute to patient care at the same time.
The health crisis is a politically manufactured problem.

Is hoppa for real!
Nasty

Of course we will find the leadership from the Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, who with his collegues cut State Health funding by nearly $1 billion in 2004, and the mighty AMA, the doctor's Union, and yes the most powerful Union in Australia.

It would seem to me that more doctor's are not being trained even though the government has ample funds to do so {projected budget surplus $17 billion} because of some nod, nod, wink, wink, say no more understanding with the AMA so as to keep doctor's incomes at the high rate at which they currently are {apologies to bulk-billing doctor's for whom this is NOT true}.

On the reverse side we have Workchoices for the balance of the working population, to drive incomes down, hee, hee {to compete with the rest of the world hee, hee} ah yes an arguement for every situation, typical tory politician. When will the sleeping Australian wake up and realise it is all a smoke and mirrors, decade of fear politics of division. Australians have always managed much easier when united.

Aka,

I'm assuming you meant "the AMA is the most powerful (medical) union in OZ". Even if that is what you meant, that wouldn't be true. It doesn't function particularly well as a union, which it isn't. And as a political body (which it is), is finds it difficult to represent doctors as a whole because of the fragmented nature of the specialist vocational groups within the medical workforce. The AMA's input into workforce planning isn't as significant as suggested, with each specialist college tasked to assess and train numbers for the specialist workforce (now essentially including general practitioners).

On the issue of overall quality of health provision vs global standards, there needs to be a fundamental shift in society's expectation for medical assesment and treatment. Pressuring politicians over 7 hour waiting times in the emergency department for conditions that individuals have the capacity to see the GP for the next day (and yes, I am taking into account those without capacity to pay in rural areas with no bulk-billing GPs)is a sign that expectations have overshot the mark. The gut reaction has been to punish emergency departments.

We cannot as a country afford expensive health services in which minimal health outcome benefits are obtained at the expense of more efficient spending in areas such as provision of basic services (basic education, vocational education). Continue to stengthen the PBAC so that drug prices are negotiated well and inexpensive (and sometimes expensive) cost-effective drugs are subsidised at the expense of expensive pointless drugs.

At some point in the evolution of segments of our health system we have to admit to adequate outcomes then assess the health of the health care workers to see if they need help to make it sustainable. Keep improving resources available to the struggling health areas but for gods sake question any policy in which public subsidisation of private health sector leads to nothing more than poorer public service and what appears to be a zero sum game private health care sector.