A new course at Edith Cowan University in Perth is hoping to address the current shortage of sonographers in WA. The dedicated medical sonography course is the first of its kind in Western Australia, however the industry is still concerned by the current shortfall of workers that is only projected to grow.
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00:00Up again at two o'clock, that's it.
00:06The first cohort of ECU's new medical sonography course in the thick of preparing for the industry.
00:12I like how hands-on it is, that even straight off the bat from first year we get to start
00:16practising and doing actual practical hands-on work.
00:19You may have to move more laterally or medially.
00:22The new four-year course with accreditation was launched earlier this year to increase
00:27workforce numbers.
00:28The university says WA is needing 30 to 35 sonographers each year to break even with
00:35demand.
00:36But this isn't happening.
00:37The industry approached ECU and these were from private radiology places and public health
00:43and said that we actually need to have a course starting at WA because there's a shortage
00:49and we need to address that shortage.
00:51The shortage of sonographers is something the industry has been concerned about for
00:55several years.
00:57There were over 11 million Medicare-funded ultrasound services last year and that's
01:03been growing in demand around 7% year on year for the last decade and the workforce just
01:10hasn't been keeping up.
01:11Senior lecturer Shanie Watts also works at BreastScreen WA and says it's concerning
01:16for patients when they can't be seen straight away.
01:20She says patients can wait up to three weeks for breast ultrasounds and up to two months
01:25for other scans like knees.
01:27It's unacceptable really for some of the wait times that people have to be waiting,
01:30particularly if you've got something that you're particularly worried about.
01:34For instance with BreastScreen, if you've got a concern about a lump, you want something
01:38done fairly soon.
01:39The federal government says it's currently working to address workforce shortages in
01:44the allied health industry.
01:45ECU is hoping its course will meet the state's demand from 2028 onwards.