Luxon made the announcement at the White Cross Lunn Avenue in Mt Wellington. White Cross CEO Dr Alastair Sullivan said any announcement that supported the training and retention of nurses and midwives was to be welcomed. However, he said more was needed.
“It’s one thing to make a partial announcement to support nurses. I do think they need to have all their studies to be funded and free and more attractive bonding arrangements to stay in New Zealand. I am aware of nurses [in Australia] being offered retention bonuses of up to A$20,000, so the announcement today in that context isn’t that attractive for a young nurse.”
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said National’s offering would not be enough to attract more nurses into the profession.
“We know the most effective way to grow our nursing workforce is to pay our nurses fairly.”
She said the previous National government had only given nurses pay rises totalling 15 per cent over its nine years. Under Labour since 2017, graduate nurse base salaries had risen 35 per cent from $49,400 to $66,700 and the top step base salary for Registered Nurses had risen 43 per cent from $66,700 to $95,300.
That put nurses on similar base salaries to those in Australia.
National has costed the policy at about $189.6 million over its first four years (about $47 million a year) which it says it would fund out of the savings it intends to make from cutting the contractors and consultants in the government sector.
Luxon said National would have further announcements to make on retention for medical professionals including nurses. This was aimed at helping the health sector retain early-career nurses and midwives at a time of high global competition for them.
“New Zealand does not train enough nurses or midwives to address this shortage, and the ones we do train are being aggressively recruited to move overseas.”
National is also proposing incentives to get more overseas nurses and midwives into New Zealand, including allowing them to come on a six-month temporary visa without a job offer to look for work. They would also be able to bring immediate family members with them.
It will also set up a relocation support scheme, paying grants of up to $10,000 to cover the relocation costs of up to 1000 nurses and midwives from overseas - expected to cost $10 million a year.
“Nurses and midwives are at the frontline of our collapsing health system and are bearing the brunt of the shortage. Having to work long shifts without enough staff is driving stress, anxiety and burnout. Something needs to urgently change,” Luxon said.
Luxon said Labour had been too busy restructuring the health system to pay enough attention to the front line and had been too slow to put nurses on to the immigration straight-to-residency Green List category.
The Government added nurses and some other medical professions to that last December - well after it first came up with the category in May.
