S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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Table 1.6 Mental Health Nurses by Remoteness Area, 2012 (Source: National Health Workforce Data Set, Nurses and Midwives, AIHW, 2012a)

Location

Major Cities

Inner Regional Outer Regional

Remote/ Very Remote

Number

14,587

3,637

1,107

259 51.4

FTE per 100,000 population

86.1

83.4

53.1

1.6.9 Current profile of remote mental health non-nursing workforce 1.6.9.1 General practitioners (GPs) There is an inequitable distribution of GPs in Australia, with remote Australians being the most disadvantaged (Schofield, Shrestha & Callander, 2012). The AIHW (2014) reported that, in 2012, there were 79,653 employed medical practitioners in Australia, of which 1,166 worked remotely and very remotely, representing 1.46% of the GP workforce. Of this number, 307 worked in private practice (out of a total Australia-wide working in private practice of 35,351); 185 worked in Aboriginal health services (out of a total Australia-wide working in Aboriginal health services of 546); 51 worked in community health services (out of a total Australia-wide working in community health services of 1,983) and 505 worked in a hospital (out of a total Australia-wide working in a hospital of 33,994). In 2013, the medical practitioner workforce proportionally (comparative to population whole numbers) decreased with remoteness (AIHW, 2014). This trend is shown in Figure 1.5.