Nurse shortage skips Wanganui

Sandy Blake

A nursing shortage hitting the country is skipping over Wanganui due to its small size, Whanganui District Health Board (WDHB) director of nursing Sandy Blake says.

"I think Wanganui is a little bit different than a lot of other places," Mrs Blake said.

"We very rarely have a nursing vacancy. We have no trouble in filling them."

The comments come after the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) launched a petition for the Government to provide funding for all new nursing graduates to do a nurse entry to practice programme (NetP).

The NetP gives graduates a year of experience, support and mentoring, which may help them into the workforce, especially into positions where experience is required.

NZNO said New Zealand is facing a "significant nursing shortage over the next decade".

Mrs Blake said although that was the case elsewhere in New Zealand, Wanganui had a stable nursing workforce.

"Our turnover is low for nursing," she said.

"The next factor is that we actually punch above our weight around taking in new graduates. We take as many as we possibly can."

The WDHB took in more graduates than they had funding for, but as other nurses left throughout the year, places usually opened up for these extra graduates.

Associate director of nursing Jevada Haitana said they usually took anything from 10-15 NetP and nursing entry to specialist practice programme nurses.

For 2013/14 WDHB had 31 applicants - 28 from Wanganui and three from out of town. Of these, 18 were shortlisted.

There were 13 placements available in hospital and community settings.

Health Minister Tony Ryall announced this month the Government would fund up to 200 additional training places for nurse graduates next year.

Ms Haitana said up to five more places would be available at WDHB.

Ms Haitana said they had to be careful when taking in graduates that they factored in their enrolled nurses as well.

"They do add a lot of value to the workforce," she said.

Mrs Blake expected nursing in the aged-care sector to become big in Wanganui in the future, due to the city's ageing population.

"You have to keep continually developing them towards what the future will look like in Wanganui," she said.

"I can see a very bright future around aged-care nursing."

It was also important to remember there was no guarantee that nurses taken in under the NetP scheme would be given a full-time job at the end of the year.

However the programme set up the graduates to find jobs where there was a nursing shortage, she said.

"What often happens with the young ones, they may go away for a while, but quite often they come back like a boomerang."

Ms Haitana said talk of graduates being unable to find jobs didn't take into account that many new graduates did not choose to work in some places that had vacancies.

"It looks at the new graduates that can't get positions but I don't know if we're really good at looking at what positions are available outside hospitals," she said.

Mrs Blake said the thinking needed to shift around the DHB providing jobs for nurses after their NetP programme.

"We will continue to do our utmost to give them the best we can, to get at least the solid year if nothing else," she said.