Three international campaigns to recruit nurses sees just 32 staff hired

A year-long recruitment drive to attract overseas nurses across three campaigns has so far resulted in just 32 being hired.

That’s enough to plug about 1% of the more than 3000 nursing vacancies identified across New Zealand at the latest count.

Te Whatu Ora refused to say how much had been spent on the campaigns, stating commercial sensitivity, but nearly $600,000 was spent on media placements alone.

The number of new recruits has left worn-out nurses working on short-staffed wards questioning whether international recruitment drives are money well spent.

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And nurses’ union the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) says it is time Te Whatu Ora instead focused on “training and retaining our own”.

Te Whatu Ora had, at September 30, almost 8300 full-time equivalent vacancies across the country – including more than 3000 nursing roles.

Te Whatu Ora’s recruitment drives for nurses from Canada, Ireland, Singapore, the UK and the US include a critical care nursing campaign, costing $52,000 in media placements. It began last February and recently expanded into a generalist nursing campaign costing a further $32,000 for media placements.

The total spent on media placements for the Make a Difference Somewhere Different campaign, which started in November, was just under $515,000.

This included creating videos, digital banners, and website content.The campaign will run until the end of March.

By the end of January this year, 545 expressions of interest were received and, of those, 117 applicants were referred to Te Whatu Ora regions and 32 so far employed.

New Zealand was focused on both international recruitment and growing the domestic workforce, said Cathrine Waetford,​ a Te Whatu Ora manager.

“While every effort is made to recruit and employ health workers as quickly as possible, international recruitment does take time.”

One Christchurch nurse, who did not want to be named, said it was “irritating” for nurses to see the amount of money going into international campaigns with little reward.

“It’s not about the money in our pockets, it’s about the fact that you could actually have trained a lot more nurses,” she said.

The nurse “loves” working with her internationally qualified nurse colleagues but said recruiting them was like “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.

There were several steps before an overseas nurse could work in New Zealand, including researching where they want to live, obtaining a work visa and gaining registration, she said.

A shortage of nurses meant things were often “hectic”, leading to staff thinking they were “going to miss things”, said the Christchurch nurse.

“[If] your loads are too big you don’t have anywhere for people to go, and in emergency places like ICU, ED, the neonatal unit, it’s not like you can say, ‘Actually, can you just hang on’.

“Sometimes a healthcare assistant can have four patients at once who have serious dementia problems, but you can’t have a hand on all four. We’re not octopuses, and someone is going to miss out.”

“The bigger the patient load the bigger the risk, and it’s knowing that you may be that one that makes that horrific mistake.

“Eventually every team will break down because you can’t keep working under that stress, and that’s when people leave,” she said.

Healthcare assistant and NZNO union delegate Allister Dietschin said often nursing staff would not take breaks during an eight-hour night shift because there was no staff to cover for them.

NZNO kaiwhakahaere (director) Kerri Nuku said the low recruitment number was due to competition in the international market and, while New Zealand should be competitive, the focus should be on training Kiwi nurses.

“We need to grow our own, and for the money that we’re using on these international campaigns we could be incentivising and supporting more nurses to graduate and free up the flow,” she said.

A national Nursing Working Group has been set up to focus on initiatives to grow the domestic nursing workforce.

But while the nursing shortage continues, Nuku is worried about people not being able to access health services in a timely way.

“We talk about vacancies but actually the impact of one vacancy that remains unfilled for two-plus years is huge. It’s a vicious cycle.”

The international campaigns are some of many initiatives under way to address workforce pressures across the motu, Waetford said.

This includes funding of up to $5000 for New Zealand-based nurses wanting to return to practice, expanding funded places on the nurse practitioner training programme, and Hauora Māori Scholarships.