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Regional health and wellbeing in focus
19 July 2008
The University Foundation has been increasingly active and successful in recent years. Our latest campaign spanning about 18 months, and concluding at year’s-end, has already attracted over $4M of our ambitious $5M target.
It has had to be an ambitious target because of the seriousness of the health crisis internationally, and from which the Region is certainly not cocooned.
The global shortage of health professionals is becoming acute, and every measure has to be examined by health departments and universities to increase the number of trainees entering the health professions. Then we have to retain them in the profession, with working conditions and research and extension opportunities that give the Sunshine Coast, for example, an edge over competitors. In this respect the naming of the new hospital as a university or teaching or tertiary hospital will be very important in this process of professional attraction and retention.
It is for these sorts of reasons that our Foundation fundraising has been so ambitious : we urgently need more trained health professionals across the spectrum and we need a dedicated building to house them.
Ultimately it will be the long-term commitment and success of world-class training programs underpinned and informed by cutting-edge research that will make or break the health system.
When it comes to preventing illness, reducing falls in the aged, researching killer diseases and a raft of initiatives that define the quality of health systems, it is trained personnel that distinguish between success and failure.
Such training is a long term investment and for some people does not have as much emotional appeal as a campaign which tugs at our heart strings in a more immediate and direct way. Yet, again, it is this personnel training that is the most fundamental need, yet the mounting shortages are alarming.
These are the reasons behind our campaign and why we still need your help this year to fund a base for these professionals, or the health services that we all need at times, will simply not be able to be provided because of manpower shortfalls in the Health sector.
This is a bigger issue than one university can address. It is going to take a huge partnership effort involving Qld Health, USC, University of Queensland, Sunshine Coast TAFE and working complementarily with Sunshine Coast Health Foundation.
Health and wellbeing are emerging as major concerns of the 21st Century with its ageing population. It will need a huge, well-planned and comprehensive response, and we need to mobilise all our regional resources to address it. Please help us if you can.
Professor Paul Thomas AM is Vice-Chancellor at the University of the Sunshine Coast.