KEEP IN TOUCH
(07) 3105 7800
Turrbal and Jagera Country
Level 4, 348 Edward Street
Brisbane QLD 4000
In her tenure as National Rural Health Commissioner, Professor Ruth Stewart has focused her time on supporting the implementation of innovative models of care at community level whilst focusing on First Nations People’s health and wellbeing. She continued the work on the development of rural generalism for medical, nursing and allied health professions. She was heavily involved in the gathering of a range of interested parties for the creation of the Ngayubah Gadan Consensus Statement – Rural and Remote Multidisciplinary Health Teams. Professor Stewart has also been a strong supporter of HWQ's GROW Rural program, joining our cohort of university health students last year in Roma for talking circle discussions and lunch. She also met with students at the Student and Prevocational Doctors Networking afternoon tea at the RDAQ Conference last month. Professor Stewart's appointment to this role ceased on 30 June, 2024 and we wish to acknowledge and thank her for her contributions and the development of policy and advocacy for remote and rural health workforce and communities.
We welcome the appointment of Professor Jenny May AM as the third National Rural Health Commissioner as she commences in this role on 2 September, 2024. We look forward to working with Professor May and the two Deputy Commissioners.
We also welcome Anita Hobson-Powell, the new Chief Allied Health Officer for Australia. We look forward to working with Anita and continuing the work to ensure support and development of allied health professionals within the remote and rural primary health care sector.
We provided advice to the Federal Government on our support for the Commonwealth Prac Payment which was announced by the Albanese Government regarding cost-of-living support for nursing, midwifery, social work and teaching students. We provided feedback on the need to extend the coverage of this arrangement to other health care students that experience ‘placement poverty’.
Our Minimum Data Set (MDS) report was released on 4 June, 2024 and the Health Workforce Needs Assessment (HWNA) was released on 18 June, 2024. The HWNA influences our priorities for the year ahead. You can access the reports below.
This year's RDAQ Conference once more provided a fantastic chance to come together with colleagues and friends to explore rural health topics. Many inspiring stories were shared supporting workforce innovation during the Rural Workforce Forum, which we proudly sponsor each year. And we are delighted to celebrate Zena Martin, Deputy CEO of HWQ, for receiving the David Horn Memorial Medal and Honorary Associate Membership. Congratulations Zena! You can read about more conference highlights below.
Our commitment to provide support for rural health workforce issues continues with the annual Health Workforce Stakeholder Group Meeting coming up in September followed by GROW Rural South West Queensland in October.
Chris Mitchell,
CEO, Health Workforce Queensland
