By MARTIN JOHNSTON
Central Auckland hospitals hope that a recruiting drive in Britain will help to ease a severe shortage of nurses.
The Starship children's hospital has deferred the non-urgent surgery of about 300 youngsters because of the shortage, which has been worsened by up to 13 nurses calling in sick each day.
The Auckland District Health Board, which runs Starship, Auckland, Green Lane and National Women's Hospitals, joined a Health Ministry-sponsored recruiting drive in London in June.
Board chief executive Graeme Edmond said there had been firm inquiries from 27 nurses.
But even if they were all hired, that would make only a small dent in the board's nursing problem.
It has 297 vacancies out of 2400 fulltime-equivalent positions.
Nationwide, hospitals are short of 2000 nurses. This is contributing to the postponement of some operations at Waikato Hospital and Rotorua Hospital.
Whakatane Hospital has 15 vacancies, a tenth of its nursing workforce.
"The vacant positions, combined with winter ills, make it problematic all round," said general manager Karen Smith.
The hospital had warned that non-urgent operations might be deferred.
UK nurses targeted to fill gaps
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