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.
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