Can Shortland Street's producers marry its dramatic storylines with Government requests to produce a show that encourages more nurses into the field? Photo / Shortland Street
Can Shortland Street's producers marry its dramatic storylines with Government requests to produce a show that encourages more nurses into the field? Photo / Shortland Street
Health Minister Andrew Little is pulling out some creative stops to encourage young Kiwis into nursing - including a Government campaign with longstanding Kiwi soap Shortland St.
In a bid to help curb New Zealand's health-worker shortage, Little announced on Monday a colab, if you will, with the popular drama and its social media platforms to "assist in promoting nursing as a fantastic career".
While the likes of Robyn Malcolm's nurse Ellen Crozier may have inspired some into healthcare in years past, there are plenty among Shorty's nursing alumni who would have steered potential recruits well away from the swinging doors of a hospital.
Yesterday a senior nurse told Newstalk ZB she is in disbelief over the proposal. She said not a single day in her 30-year career has felt like a soap opera. However, Shortland Street producer Oliver Driver pointed to the plan as a way for the show to "stay relevant and part of the conversation".
As the Government shares information with producers to create storylines aimed at recruiting nurses in real life, we've taken it upon ourselves to recall a few characters and plots from episodes past that they'll want to avoid in their recruitment campaign.
The nefarious nurse Carla - not exactly a poster girl for a caring healthcare worker. Photo / Shortland Street
She was Shortland Street's original sinner: nurse Carla Crozier. Played by Elisabeth Easther, Carla did nothing for the face of healthcare when her character bludgeoned her husband to death with a candlestick.
The blackmailing, marijuana-lacing nurse struck fear in the hearts of 90s Shorty St fans before making her infamous return last year to hold a bunch of nurses hostage - in between setting a house on fire and appearing in dark corridors, a menacing tinkle always audible.
Suffice to say, Carla's not the sort of cohort you'd want to find yourself folding hospital corners with.
To paint a picture of a safe workplace, the Government will want to avoid the horrifying storyline that brought Shortland St's season to a close in 2015.
Played out amid a wedding and a Sol3 Mio serenade, the year's finale saw one Gareth Hutchings - loner, loser, gun nut - scurry unseen onto the wards, take nurse Kylie Brown hostage and shoot Ben Barrington's Dr Drew McCaskill, plus an old man, before being rushed by a brave group in the hospital's cafeteria.
3. Nurse Carmen Roberts' untimely death
1995's Christmas cliffhanger saw an enraged truckie ram through Shortland St's reception. At first, beloved nurse Carmen Roberts, who was also a new mum to Tuesday and wife to doting Guy Warner, appeared fine after being injured in the incident.
But a Christmas Day episode saw the cheery nurse, played by Theresa Healey, die from a brain haemorrhage, ostensibly related to the truck crash. It's a storyline of cold comfort for medical personnel injured on the job.
4. Nurse Tiffany's fatal fall
It was a late 90s Shortland St tragedy: Nurse Tiffany Marinovich (also Warner and Pratt) was off-duty when she spotted a suicidal patient making their way to the top of a high-rise building. While she successfully talked them down, the pregnant nurse ended up plummeting to her death instead. Not the most encouraging tale of a nurse-turned-hero.
5. The nurse-turned-Ferndale Strangler
Unlike the murderous nurse Carla who preceded him, Joey Henderson made his rounds as a timid figure in the corridors of Shortland Street. But it was the shy nurse Henderson, played by Johnny Barker, who went on to wrap the body of the hospital's receptionist in plastic and quietly rolled it into the clinic's dumpster out back. And it was he who took out four other Ferndalers before being outed in, that's right, a Christmas cliffhanger.
A charming exemplar indeed.
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