Shockingly high staff turnover at remote Northern Territory health clinics is compromising the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
A Monash University study found half the staff working at clinics were likely to leave after just four months, two-thirds leave remote work altogether after one year and some clinics had a 128 per cent turnover rate each year.
It found the constant changeover had serious implications for the continuity of care and patient health.
"It shows the extreme fragility of the remote workforce, confirming that there is a heavy reliance on agency nurses to provide primary health care in NT remote communities," lead author Deborah Russell said.
"A chronic lack of continuity of care sees people less likely to access primary health care in a timely way and to disengage from their health care altogether."
Dr Russell said constantly having to recruit and orient new staff was also a serious drain on resources and could make it very difficult for clinics to improve their services.
The study looked at staff turnover in 53 remote clinics in the Northern Territory between 2013 and 2015.
Chief investigator, John Wakerman, from Flinders Northern Territory, said the work pointed to a number of possible strategies.
These included increased investment in recruiting and retaining local Aboriginal health practitioners and using remote nurse practitioners where there were no doctors to provide higher levels of care.
"We can also learn from successful strategies used for training and retaining doctors and apply them to nursing and allied health professionals," Professor Wakerman said.
"This would entail prioritising remote and rural origin and Aboriginal students in undergraduate courses, early exposure and training in remote areas and developing clear career pathways for these remote area health professionals."
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