He also said more funding was needed to ensure facilities such as Hakea Lodge aged care home were able to stay open and serve their communities for longer.
Mr Birrell said short-term and long-term assistance was needed, especially to encourage registered nurses to move to regional areas such as the Goulburn Valley.
“Whether that is some sort of relocation incentive, or wage subsidy, we have to do something to ease the pressure of operators and current staff,” Mr Birrell said.
“We also need a longer-term plan to grow our own health workforce by training people locally.”
Long-term, Mr Birrell urged to government to back the Goulburn Valley clinical health school, which the Nationals pledged $19.5 million towards ahead of the Federal Election last year.
The $26.5 million project would be a partnership between Goulburn Valley Health and La Trobe University to train nurses, midwifes and allied health workers in Shepparton at a new facility, helping them learn in a clinical setting.
“The Albanese Government scrapped the dedicated regional fund we were going to use to fund the clinical health school and still hasn’t opened up alternative funding streams,” Mr Birrell said.
“I supported the implementation of the recommendations from the aged care royal commission but warned at the time that the transition needed to be carefully managed, including exemptions for regional operators who could not recruit the required staff.”
Mr Birrell said while Shepparton Villages’ decision to close Hakea Lodge was driven by the age and unsuitability of the building, it showed that more broadly across the aged care sector the inability to recruit staff was a looming crisis.
“GV Health and La Trobe University are still committed to the clinical health school and together we continue to lobby the Albanese Government to fund it as a medium- to long-term solution to the workforce challenges in the region,” he said.
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