KEY POINTS:
Nursing is one example of a lost recruitment opportunity, says Jacqueline Smart.
Once, nursing was valued for precisely the reasons young New Zealanders are attracted to jobs - it was important to others. Then the stories about poor pay, long hours and a health system in crisis started dominating the media.
"If I choose to be a nurse I'm going to actually have to justify why I'd want to do that, because all I've heard about is the bad working conditions and the fact that it's underpaid and the health system is falling backwards," Smart says.
"What happens is that media come out and talk about jobs in terms of money and, therefore, we don't know how to assess them relative to other things.
"But nursing has never actually gone back and reminded people about what nursing gives back, what nursing does, how people actually do like nurses, how people see nurses."
