The greatest strength of the Australian Healthcare System is embedded in its significant investment in research and development. There is evidence that the Australian government invests a significant amount of its budget to healthcare research and development. In particular, The Australian Government (2016) observe that the Australian Healthcare Systems disburses up to $1 billion annually to research and development projects with the aim of development new drugs and technology to enhance healthcare. Notably, through investment in research and development especially with respects to development of new treatment technologies, equipment and drugs, Australia is currently ranked among the top ten nations as far as quality healthcare services is concerned. In addition to this, there is a need to observe that the availability of quality healthcare to Australian has enhanced their lives and significantly extended their average expectancy to approximately 82.5 years, and is expected to rise to approximately 95.1 years and 96.6 years for men and women respectively (PwC Australia, 2016). This means that most Australians live longer as compared to people from other countries across the globe.
澳大利亚医疗体系的更大优势在于其在研发方面的巨大投资。有证据表明，澳大利亚政府在其预算中投入了大量资金用于医疗保健研究和开发。特别是，澳大利亚政府（2016年）观察到，澳大利亚医疗保健系统每年向研发项目支付高达10亿美元的资金，旨在开发新药和技术，以提高医疗保健水平。值得注意的是，通过对研发的投资，特别是在新治疗技术、设备和药物的开发方面，澳大利亚目前在医疗服务质量方面名列前十。除此之外，还需要注意的是，澳大利亚人获得优质医疗服务提高了他们的寿命，并显著延长了他们的平均预期寿命至82.5岁左右，预计男性和女性的平均预期寿命将分别提高至95.1岁和96.6岁左右（普华永道澳大利亚公司，2016年）。这意味着与世界其他的人相比，大多数澳大利亚人的寿命更长。
Whereas the Australian Healthcare System boasts of its massive investment in research and development, the system is plagued by workforce challenges. Researchers, scholars and policymakers agree that over the last several years, there has been a significant decline in the supply of health workers in Australia (Segal & Bolton, 2009). Segal and Bolton (2009) argue that this decline in the supply of healthcare workforce in Australia is attributed to among other factors a rise in the ageing population. In this case, due to high quality healthcare services that has contributed to a significant rise in the level of life expectancy, the Australian population has experience an increase in the aged population that has a high demand for healthcare services. Whereas metropolitan areas have not experience significant shortage of healthcare workforce in this nation, there is a need to observe that the outskirts of urban areas as well as remote geographical continue to experience acute shortage of healthcare professionals. Speaking this point of view, there is a need to observe that the declining healthcare workforce population is likely to have a negative impact on the utilization of healthcare resources and poor service delivery, thus undermining the quality of healthcare in this nation in the long run.
尽管澳大利亚医疗体系以其在研发方面的巨大投资而自豪，但该体系却饱受劳动力挑战的困扰。研究人员、学者和决策者一致认为，在过去几年中，澳大利亚卫生工作者的供应量显著下降（Segal&Bolton，2009）。Segal和Bolton（2009）认为，澳大利亚医疗保健劳动力供应的下降除其他因素外，归因于老龄化人口的增加。在这种情况下，由于高质量的医疗保健服务大大提高了预期寿命，澳大利亚人口对医疗保健服务的高需求老年人口有所增加。虽然美国大都会地区没有经历过严重的医疗保健劳动力短缺，但需要注意的是，城市郊区以及偏远地区继续经历着医疗保健专业人员的严重短缺。从这一角度讲，需要注意的是，医疗保健劳动力人口的下降可能会对医疗保健资源的利用和糟糕的服务提供产生负面影响，从而从长远来看损害这个的医疗保健质量。
Speaking from this point of view, there is a need to invest heavily in the training of healthcare professionals in Australia. In this regard, the government needs to offer incentives such as low tuition costs to attract more people to train as healthcare professionals. Furthermore, such incentives should target marginalized communities who live in rural areas. The incentives should be accompanied with improved remuneration of healthcare professionals who are willing to work in rural and remote areas in Australia. Such remuneration could be in form of hardship allowance. This will motivate healthcare professionals to consider relocating to rural areas, which will contribute to even distribution of these professionals across the country. In addition to this, the government can also consider employing a certain percentage of foreigners who train as healthcare professionals in Australian institutions, thus boosting the overall population of healthcare professionals in this nation.
从这个角度讲，澳大利亚有必要大力投资于医疗专业人员的培训。在这方面，政府需要提供低学费等激励措施，以吸引更多人接受医疗专业培训。此外，此类激励措施应针对生活在农村地区的边缘化社区。这些激励措施应该伴随着愿意在澳大利亚农村和偏远地区工作的医疗专业人员的薪酬的提高。这种报酬可以是艰苦条件津贴的形式。这将激励医疗保健专业人士考虑搬迁到农村地区，这将有助于在全国范围内甚至分配这些专业人员。除此之外，政府还可以考虑聘用一定比例的外国人作为澳大利亚医疗机构的医疗专业人员，从而提高该国医疗保健专业人员的总体人口。