More AUT nursing students have come forward describing placements in uncomfortable or dangerous situations. Photo / 123rf
By Tom Taylor of RNZ
More harrowing stories have emerged about the treatment of AUT nursing students.
Nursing students have had to work a minimum of 1100 unpaid clinical hours alongside full-time study, with no payment or compensation for petrol or hospital parking.
Many were also juggling jobs to make ends meet.
And while AUT said it took the wellbeing of students seriously, more students have come forward describing placements in uncomfortable or dangerous situations.
“Just go outside and eat some fruit, and everything will be okay again”: This was how AUT responded to the concerns of its nursing students on clinical placements, according to third-year student Chelsea Torrance.
Every day on a Facebook group for nursing students Torrance saw new posts showing how anxious the students were about their degree.
Worried about their wellbeing, Torrance collated the stories of 20 more students in a Google document where the students could remain anonymous.
“I’ve completed countless placements which involve 40-hour weeks, unpaid - driving 60 minutes each way to placements, parking fees, petrol, and time off work,” one student said.
“AUT is disgusting, disorganised, distasteful, and detrimental to the wellbeing of students - especially nursing students,” another said.
“AUT knows you by your student number, not your name or your face.”
Torrance said that on clinical placements throughout the degree, AUT placed students in uncomfortable or dangerous situations.
In one extreme example, she said that as a second-year student last year, AUT placed her on a dementia ward with convicted rapists and murderers.
“We were literally fearing for our lives because they could snap at one second and then a six-foot-seven man is holding you up against the wall.”
She asked to be moved, but her clinical educator told her there were no other placements available, other than the women’s section of the same ward, she said.
Torrance said AUT continued sending students to this clinical placement even after the students raised serious concerns about their safety.
“Even if we had started our next placement a bit later, we wouldn’t have minded - we really just wanted to get out of there.
“Everyone was petrified to go into that placement every day, but we still needed to get those hours, otherwise we would fail.”
In a response from AUT, the university said it had taken student feedback into account and would no longer be using this placement.
But other students shared Torrance’s apprehension about the university failing them:
“There is no such thing as a B- or C-grade student.”
“You need to be an A-grade student, otherwise you will be resitting.”
“This creates so much stress and pressure to the point that I ended up in ED with an anxiety attack and heart palpitations before I was due to sit an exam.”
“I am 21 years old. This is not okay.”
Head of nursing at AUT Stephen Neville said while the university focused on student success, it also had to consider the safety of the public when graduate nurses entered the workforce.
“Some students may fail, but we will give students other opportunities to be successful.”
Neville said the school gave students several opportunities to demonstrate that they were competent, which could result in a student’s graduation being delayed, rather than written off completely.
Responding to criticism about students having to travel long distances for their clinical placements, he said there was only a limited pool of placements that universities shared between them.
“The option is either no clinical experience for the student, in which case they can’t complete the requirements for the course, or to be able to travel to the other side of Auckland - and I’m sorry if a student has to do that, but I would prefer that they have the option of being successful in the programme by completing clinical [placements].”
Neville said AUT had a fund to support students financially.
The fund did not specifically cover students’ travel costs but was kept flexible to accommodate the diverse needs of students, he said.
However, some students said this support was hard to access, and students had little say in the location of their placement.
One third-year AUT nursing student has told RNZ she would not advise anyone to embark on a nursing degree:
“F*** no, stay away from it - don’t even consider it.”
RNZ put this view to Neville. He responded: “I think it’s totally unprofessional of somebody who wants to be a nurse to use the F-word. It doesn’t resonate particularly well with me.”
Neville also said any student who had concerns about anything to do with their degree or placement could contact him directly.
Figures supplied by AUT showed that of the 1085 students enrolled from 2017-2019, just 612 or 56 percent had gone on to complete the three-year degree.
Neville said he was unaware of these statistics.
Health Minister Andrew Little acknowledged “there are some issues” in nurses’ training.
“Particularly in the end of that third year, in the final placement,” he told Checkpoint.
The Ministry of Health and Te Whatu Ora were looking at what measures or further level of support could be provided to stop the attrition of students in their final year, he said.
Asked if third-year nursing students should be paid, Little said they should get “some form of support during that final placement, because they are on the cusp of completing and therefore being eligible to be a registered nurse”.
Little said AUT was not the only place that trained nurses in New Zealand and there were in fact “record numbers of students in our nursing schools ... and we are producing record numbers of graduates”.
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