Australia’s recruitment of health workers from Pacific Island countries is leaving those countries’ health systems on the brink of collapse, new research warns.
A report from the non-profit, non-political Australia Institute and Public Services International also found that such workers are being deskilled, underpaid and exploited when they get to Australia.
“Workers have the right to cross borders for a better life for themselves and their families,” said Fiona Macdonald, Director of the Centre for Future Work at the institute.
“The current system is broken. It is rich countries taking from poor countries and giving nothing back. Australia and New Zealand are offloading their own care crises to their neighbours.”
PACIFIC HEALTH CRISIS
The report also examines the state of health systems in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu; it says many services and hospitals are now operating at 30-40% of capacity or below.
More than 31,000 Island workers are believed to be currently filling roles in Australia.
The research reveals that not only are theseworkers doing lower-skilled care jobs in Australia, they are also vulnerable to abuse due to their visa status.
Workers are too afraid of losing their jobs to speak out, say some media reports.
“Australia has vowed to invest in the health systems of its neighbours, not destroy them. It should be helping to build better, safer health facilities and train workers, not lure them away,” Macdonald says.
“We are taking workers out of a system already at breaking point, giving them jobs which are below their skill level and failing to protect them from exploitation and mistreatment.
“The recruiting and labour hire systems, including international schemes like PALM, need urgent reform. This should start with meaningful dialogue with the workers themselves.”
Care workers were added to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme, which was traditionally aimed at seasonal agriculture workers like fruit pickers.
This has led to skilled health workers like nurses quitting their jobs to take up better paid, lower skilled jobs in Australia.
Through PALM, eligible businesses can recruit workers for short-term jobs for up to nine months or long-term roles for 1–4 years in unskilled, low-skilled or semi-skilled jobs.
The Pacific countries taking part in the scheme are Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste (non-Pacific), Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
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