Nurses crossing the ditch for better pay and conditions, even on a short-term basis, will be a “significant loss to Hawke’s Bay” amid a widespread nursing crisis across the country, one leader says.

According to statistics from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra), more than 9000 New Zealand nurses have registered to work in Australia in the past 10 months – about 12 per cent of the active workforce. The organisation did not track how many nurses actually went on to get jobs.

A spokesperson for the organisation said when a practitioner gains registration under the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997 (TTMR), Ahpra also does not obtain any geographical data other than “New Zealand” for the purpose of their registration.

But Hawke’s Bay-based Nurses’ Organisation union kaiwhakahaere [CEO] Kerri Nuku said the region definitely wasn’t immune to the crisis sweeping the country, and she personally knew many local nurses and graduates who had looked to Australia for better work conditions and pay.

“I know of many of my friends have looked to go to Australia on short-term contracts to reap the benefits of working in Australia but also keep some stability back here. Many aren’t sold on permanently moving to Australia, but they are taking six-month to year-long contracts,” she said.

“The nurses I know move to take on short-term contracts because they were originally incentivised by the pay, and also the professional development opportunities they may not have here.”

She said any local nurse or graduate leaving will have a flow-on effect, resulting in a loss for the people of Hawke’s Bay.

“It’s a no-brainer, really; we’ve got to make sure that as a small provincial region, we maintain the workforce that we have, and at the moment, many of the colleagues I know are choosing to go to Australia for several different reasons.

“I’m aware of nurses graduating and who have done their clinical placements here in Hawke’s Bay who say they are [heading] straight off to Australia after [finishing] their degree. If that’s not enough to keep them here, we need to look at the drawcard for them to go.”

Pay equity, Nuku said, was often also a factor in the decision to move, and the perception of the effect of Cyclone Gabrielle and workforce pressures didn’t help either.

“At the moment, we’ve only got nurses within Te Whatu Ora who get pay equity; the rest who work out in the primary care sector are still quite disproportionally paid compared to their colleagues. That’s an area we can’t afford to see nurses leave from, but it’s where we see many leave from.

“When we advertise for nurses to come and work in ‘sunny Hawke’s Bay and wine country’ – you can’t run that ad now, because it’s quite different.”

To combat the exodus at a local and national level, Nuku said the Government needed to come out with its workforce strategy.

“It has to be brave to stop the influx of internationally qualified nurses to our shores. If we stopped that, there would have to be an urgency around how we supported our nurses inside New Zealand.

“At the moment, because it’s easy to say, ‘Let’s open up the borders and let’s increase and flood our workforce with internationally qualified nurses’, it resolves the responsibility of the Government to have to invest in growing our own and supporting nurses and students that are currently here into nursing positions.”

It also came down to supporting nurses in their clinical placements and valuing them when they get employed, Nuku said.

“Every nurse goes to work to do the best they can. It’s really hard if you lack the resources to do that.”

A spokesperson for Health Minister Dr Shane Reti said the Ministry of Health was aware the health workforce, including nurses, was “increasingly highly mobile”, and acknowledged the global shortage included nurses in rural areas.

“Under the Health Workforce Plan, the agencies have a range of initiatives under way to address recruitment and retention of nurses, and we’re keen to support those initiatives too: recruitment, retention and remuneration for our workforce will be the key factors in maintaining numbers right across the workforce, including nursing.

“A large number of internationally qualified nurses (IQNs) registered in New Zealand last year – that’s also been good news as we look to increase our home-grown nursing workforce.”

Mitchell Hageman joined Hawke’s Bay Today in January 2023. From his Napier base, he writes regularly on social issues, arts and culture, and the community.