Nursing school sits empty during nurse workforce crisis

Nurses are under pressure due to a shortage of workers.

A new nurse training facility in Auckland has been sitting empty since the end of last year, unable to open because of regulations on nurse training that were abolished long ago in Australia.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) – the sector’s union – has led a campaign to end what it says is a crisis in the nursing workforce, but it is opposed to UP Education’s Heathcare Academy of NZ getting government funding.

It would prefer to wait for the government’s delayed mega polytechnic, Te Pūkenga, to start teaching in July.

“It doesn’t make any sense for a private university to provide training that we are trying to keep protected and supported,” the NZNO’s professional services manager, Mairi Lucas, told BusinessDesk.

The merger of the country’s 16 polytechnics has run into a string of problems getting under way.

The NZNO said in a statement on April 12 that the country was short of between 4000 and 5000 nurses and “we want to see everything possible being done without delay”.

However, that did not include allowing private education providers to “cherrypick” elements of nursing education, NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter said.

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