New nursing graduates lured overseas by better pay and conditions

Wellington nurse Vicki Nelson did not hang about once she graduated from her degree course in November.

The 19-year-old was one of 30 nurses recruited straight from graduation by a large Australian private hospital for much better pay than she could earn here.

Ms Nelson rejected Hutt Valley Health's offer of an all-up annual salary of $28,000 in favour of a job at Melbourne's St Vincents and Mercy Private Hospital. A job which pays $42,500 plus overtime and shift money.

With such pay rates on offer overseas, it's no wonder Auckland District Health Board, with New Zealand's largest public hospitals, is facing a chronic shortage of 207 nurses. Two other Auckland boards also face shortages: Waitemata is down 47 and Counties-Manukau is short of 30.

The Nurses Organisation estimates the national shortage could be as high as 2000.

It would take Ms Nelson six years as an Auckland staff nurse to even match her Australian starting rate of $42,500, so it's easy to see why New Zealand nurses complain of being underpaid.

Ms Nelson had not planned to move overseas, but St Vincents and Mercy were quick to advertise an 0800 number in New Zealand newspapers - while she had found our health boards "very arrogant" and too slow to respond to her inquiries.

Airfares, seven nights' motel accommodation and two months' rent were part of the deal.

Although Melbourne living costs are higher than those in Wellington or Auckland, she has to work only nine shifts a fortnight.

Ms Nelson is just one of 1984 nurses who gained verification of their nursing registrations from the Nursing Council in the past 10 and a half months, as a step to working overseas. These included 166 new graduates. Just over half - 1057 - were bound for Australia, where a controversial new minimum staffing ratio in Victorian public hospitals has caused a huge demand for nurses.

In the previous full financial year, 1820 nurses sought registration verification. But while New Zealand bleeds nursing talent, the council has registered or enrolled 1196 overseas nurses to work in New Zealand in the past year.

These include 572 from Britain, 160 from South Africa, 96 from Australia, 84 from the Philippines, and 69 from Fiji.

Leading recruitment agency Geneva Health reports a surge in interest from Britain since January. It has 600 nurses and other health professionals wading through the paperwork needed to practise here.

Getting former specialist nurses back into the workforce after raising families is proving difficult.

One nurse said Waitemata District Health Board expected her to work more than 100 hours without pay as part of retraining.

But Waitemata nursing director Jocelyn Peach says without Government funding the retraining is a direct cost to the board.

The Nurses Organisation says the Victorian Government has spent millions of dollars to hire 2634 retired and out-of-state nurses to make up the minimum staff-patient ratio decreed by the Industrial Relations Commission.

It has sent nursing adviser Margaret Cain to Victoria to examine the scheme. Ms Cain says there is no international nursing shortage - "just a shortage of nurses who want to work in shit environments".

nzherald.co.nz/hospitals