Nursing students shocked at ‘unreasonably difficult’ exam amid Health NZ ‘hiring freeze’

Student nurses were “shocked” at this week’s final exam that they claim was “unreasonably difficult”.

The stress comes as graduating nurses wait to discover if they’ve been “matched” to their desired jobs in the medical system amid concerns of a “hiring freeze” in one part of Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora.

Once students complete their training programmes they must sit and pass the Nursing Council State Final Examination to become registered. They need to pass to be matched with a job under the Nursing Entry to Practice Programme (NetP).

One registered nurse exam was on Tuesday and some of those who took it told the Herald they were shocked at how hard they found it.

One student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they felt the exam was “unreasonably difficult”.

Another, who also would not be named, said, “Nothing could have prepared us for that”.

After one of the registered nurse State Final Examinations on Tuesday, students said they were shocked at how hard they found it.

“We had access to previous exams and the style of the questions were very different,” they said.

One student said, “It felt like it was more subjective than objective.

“They prepared us for this exam as they have in previous years – but because of the way it was written this year, there were questions in there that we just weren’t prepared for.”

A third student said most of her cohort left the exam confused and concerned:

“Everyone struggled, it wasn’t just one or two of us, we all felt the same thing.”

The Nursing Council of New Zealand, which is responsible for exam content, said the exam is “derived from a psychometrically tested bank of questions”.

When asked why students struggled with this exam, the council would not comment.

‘Already made the decision to move overseas’

Megan, a University of Auckland nursing student who wanted only her first name used, said waiting to discover if they had jobs has been an “incredibly challenging and stressful experience”.

“There’s high competition with a limited number of positions,” she said in an interview.

Megan said many students were weighing up whether it was worth staying in New Zealand.

“Essentially, most of my colleagues have already made the decision to move overseas.

“Why should we be stressed waiting for a job that we might not ever get?” she questioned.

Speaking to the Herald, another student reported that so far, only half of her class has received job matches in the Nurse Entry to Practice (NetP) Programme.

A person working in the health sector earlier told the Herald that Auckland health authorities had “cancelled hiring any new graduate nurses this year”.

“We should be cultivating and looking after our own trained nurses. They’ll go overseas . . . They did this once over Covid and it had long knock-on effects,” they alleged.

Public Service Association (PSA) national sector lead Ashok Shankar believes “it is going to become a nurses’ crisis”.

“For a long time, we just couldn’t get nurses in New Zealand, we had to import them . . . We have now got a large number that are getting trained locally, and all we’ll be doing is exporting them now, after training them,” he said.

Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora chief people officer Andrew Slater responded to the concerns in a statement, saying there were now “more nurses employed by our hospitals than ever before”.

There are 29,404 full-time equivalent nurses employed by Health NZ across the country – an overall increase of around 2900 in the past year.

“There are still some gaps, and we continue to actively recruit nurses – particularly in specialist areas such as mental health and addictions, and critical care,” Slater commented.

Health New Zealand confirmed to the Herald that 535 applications were completed for the mid-year student nursing intake, with 334 matched to roles “already”.

“The remaining 166 unmatched nurses – a small number of whom did not accept initial offers – have been placed into a national talent pool, which will open to employers this month and we expect graduates will be approached by other prospective employers,” Slater added.

Health New Zealand has seen “far fewer vacancies” than in 2023. Slater said the agency continues to place as many graduate nurses “as we can into roles” and was confident placements would increase over the coming weeks and months.

“Graduate nurses are a vital part of our health system. We remain committed to supporting nurse graduates to find employment either with Health NZ, where we still have 25 roles that matches were not made to – or in the wider health sector – such as primary/community care, aged residential care, private providers or public health.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the office of Health Minister Dr Shane Reti said Health New Zealand has made “significant progress” in growing the country’s health workforce.

“Our graduate nurses and nurses in training are a valued part of New Zealand’s health system. The Government is focused on increasing our own, homegrown health workforce.”

Katie Oliver is a Christchurch-based multimedia journalist and breaking news reporter.

Azaria Howell is a Wellington-based multimedia reporter with an eye across the region. She joined NZME in 2022 and has a keen interest in city council decisions, public service agency reform and transport.