Concerns have been raised as to how the private company appointed to run Australia's response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa will train its staff.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade awarded the contract to Aspen Medical on Wednesday.

Questions are being asked as to why Australian Medical Assistance Teams, or AUSMATs, are not part of the country's Ebola response in Africa.

Non-government organisations are frustrated that their months of expertise in West Africa are being ignored in favour of a private company with limited experience in the region.

Since 2007, AusTender documents show Aspen has been awarded more than $200 million in government contracts from the Department of Defence alone.

The Government will now pay the company $20 million to run a 100-bed facility in Sierra Leone.

On Thursday morning Health Minister Peter Dutton told ABC's AM program the Government's choice to hire a private company for the job was not an unusual decision.

"[It is] no different to the approach that's been taken by the Europeans [who have] have adopted a similar model," Mr Dutton said.

"We're seeing lots of private contractors because they've got the capacity and the logistical capacity to deliver very quickly what governments want on the ground.

"The Australian Greens and those on the left who have been critical would have been critical of anything the Government did, frankly."

But Victorian Greens Senator and public health specialist Richard Di Natale has doubts of Aspen's ability to manage the situation in West Africa alone.

"Aspen could only provide that training if they were doing it in conjunction with some of the NGOs that are already established in the field," Senator Di Natale said.

"And I would be staggered if Aspen had made a decision to go this alone and to deploy people to the field without working with the NGOs that have already spent months there and have developed protocols and procedures that are designed to keep health workers safe.

"To simply outsource this to a private medical company and to do that without what appears to be the necessary qualifications, in terms of training and experience that will be provided to other health workers who will be working for NGOs, that have got a long experience in this area, does raise some serious questions. It's absolutely certain.

"I would be very concerned if Aspen essentially made the decision to deploy people directly to the field without working with the existing NGO community deployed in West Africa."

But Aspen's managing director Glenn Keys told the ABC the organisation does have some experience in West Africa.

"[I think] we were approached because we were already on the ground. We're in Liberia - we have been for a number of months," Mr Keys said.

"We opened up before the Ebola outbreak occurred. So we've got good experience in north-west Africa, and there's not a lot of Australian companies that do.

Healthcare provider Aspen Medical: The Canberra-based healthcare provider will be at the centre of Australia's efforts to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It has been awarded a contract, worth up to $20 million, by the Australian Government to staff a 100-bed treatment centre in Sierra Leone until the middle of next year. About 240 staff will be needed for the centre, due to open by the end of month with a mix of international staff and Australian paid volunteers. The firm set up a clinic in Liberia's capital Monrovia, about 350 kilometres from Sierra Leone, several months before the Ebola outbreak. It already provides primary health care in Sierra Leone. Aspen Medical was contracted by the Australian Government to assist in the emergency response to a cholera outbreak in Papua New Guinea in 2010. It also provides services on behalf of the Australian Government in the Solomon Islands and previously in Timor Leste where it was credited with providing emergency surgery to save the life of president Jose Ramos Horta after an attempted assassination in 2008. The private company is headed by Glenn Keys, who was named the 2015 ACT Australian of the Year on Monday.

"And then on top of that, we already do a range of deployed health work, and have done for over a decade. So I think we've got a lot of the requisite skills to do that work."

However it is not clear if the company's clinic in Africa has been dealing with Ebola patients.

Australian Medical Association (AMA) president Associate Professor Brian Owler is seeking a meeting with Aspen to ask questions about their plans for training staff.

"Everyone wants to make sure these people are brought home safely. So the training has to be to a very high standard," Professor Owler said.

"It does involve making sure that they're well drilled in using the personal protective equipment, but also understand the conditions that they're going to be working under, the things that they're going to confront, and that they have reasonable expectations even about treatments they're going to be able to provide to these patients."

Both Professor Owler and Senator Di Natale suggest AUSMAT should be playing a role in Australia's involvement in West Africa.

"Of course they should. These are the people who are trained specifically for instances like this," Senator Di Natale said.

"That's the whole point of having an AUSMAT team - to have people with the skills and qualifications who can go to the field and can ensure that they're the first responders.

"We need to ensure that AUSMAT health professionals are deployed to West Africa not simply because they're the most appropriate people to respond in instances such as this, but if there was to be an outbreak, for example in our region... then it would be the AUSMAT team that would be deployed, and without that field experience it potentially exposes us to serious risk."