Building Health Workforce Through Education and Training: Role of the WA Centre for Rural Health
Tracks
Concurrent Room 4
| Friday, August 7, 2026 |
| 9:20 AM - 9:40 AM |
| Concurrent Room 4 |
Overview
Professor Rohan Rasiah, University of Western Australia
Details
1. Place-based health and social care education and training contribute to the building of a local and sustainable health and social care workforce.
2. Community immersion is an important component in the training of health and social care professions.
3. The Pilbara and more broadly Northern Australia provides great opportunities for health and social care professionals to work at their full scope of practice and greater multidisciplinary practice.
Speaker
Associate Professor Rohan Rasiah
Assistant Director (WA Centre for Rural Health)
University Of Western Australia
Building health workforce through education and training, role of the WA Centre for Rural Health
Presentation Overview
The Pilbara region of Western Australia faces persistent and significant shortages of health professionals across nursing, midwifery, dental and allied health disciplines alongside challenges in recruiting and retaining medical practitioners. The University Department of Rural Health, through the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training (RHMT) Program has supported the place-based education and training of health and social care students. The Pilbara specifically presents more variable workforce numbers year on year compared to other regions, reflecting the instability of the health workforce. Growing and supporting the health workforce in rural and remote regions has featured in many policy documents and government strategies. The WA Workforce Strategy 2034 highlights that allied workforce challenges exist within the WA health system due to limited career pathways and competition from the private sector. The strategy highlights the need to support the allied workforce by exploring more flexible and expanded career pathways, encouraging greater multidisciplinary practice and facilitating staff to work to their full scope of practice(1). Since 2016, the WA Centre for Rural Health has grown the opportunities for health and social care students to undertake across the Pilbara communities, including Karratha, Roebourne, Hedland, Newman, Tom Price and Onslow. Over the period 2019 to 2025, the student weeks has grown from 441 student weeks in 2019 to 1166 in 2025. This represents a growth of 183% student numbers over seven years from 81 students in 2019 to 229 students in 2025. Feedback from the students and preceptors has been positive with some of these students returning to work as health professionals in the region following graduation. The importance of high-quality education and training experiences, combined with community immersion, is critical to attracting and retaining health professionals in remote Australia, building a local health and social care workforce.
1 WA Health Workforce Strategy 2034. Department of Health. 2024
1 WA Health Workforce Strategy 2034. Department of Health. 2024
Biography
Associate Professor Rohan Rasiah is the Assistant Director (Pilbara) of the WA Centre for Rural Health, University of Western Australia. He is a practicing pharmacist and academic, based in Karratha. He has worked across jurisdictions across Northern Australia, including James Cook University in Townsville and North West Queensland (based in Mt Isa). His current focus in building sustainable local health and social care workforce for remote communities in North West Western Australia and delivering high quality work integrated learning to health science students, including Nursing, Allied Health and Dental students through the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program.
