By MARTIN JOHNSON
A Texan hospital's bid to lure up to 100 New Zealand nurses with offers of fatter pay packets has sparked strong interest from potential applicants who believe they are underpaid.
Six nurses, or their partners, rang the Herald yesterday wanting to know how they could respond to the call for staff at a private hospital in the city of Lubbock.
A Waikato Hospital cardiac nurse, Alana Fulton, the only one willing to be named, said it was good that the Covenant Health System had come to New Zealand to recruit staff. Losing 100 nurses might jolt New Zealand hospitals into realising they needed to pay nurses more to retain them, she said.
General nurses in Auckland earn about $33,000, including penal rates and overtime. Covenant is offering up to $US38,000 ($76,458).
But Jo Wallis, the chief executive of Covenant's recruiting agency in New Zealand, Geneva Health International, said living costs were higher in Texas. The agency had more nurses on its books who were considering work in New Zealand, including returning Kiwis, than the total of nurses sought by Covenant and all the other overseas hospitals it worked for.
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