South Australia Eyeing for Oversees Nurses to Revive Workforce
Crisis
With a dramatic decline in the Australian workforce in nursing
profession, South Australia is now feeling the heat. It is now in dire
need of hiring overseas nurses and skilled nursing labour to overcome
the workforce crisis. With years of not producing enough nurses through
universities and training institutions, today Australia is not just
struggling hard to fill the shortage of nurses but have started thinking
of some innovative ideas to bring in more overseas nurses.
According to the reports of Australian Nursing Federation SA, Australia
is short of about 500 nurses and that number will rise to about 5000 by
2020. In the words of Business SA Chief Executive Peter Vaughan - nurses
are a "precious resource" on the world market and Australia should be
"poaching" health workers from other countries. He believes that in the
health sector there has been a shyness to recognize the need for
importing skilled labours and this indirectly and slowly created such a
labour force vacuum.
What are the skills required for overseas nurses
To work in Australia, as an overseas nurse you must first have your
qualification assessed by relevant authority and gain registration with
one of the state or territory nursing registration boards. It is
proposed that as of 1 July 2010 the National Registration and
Accreditation Scheme will commence, introducing one registration
throughout Australia.
A professional migration agent can assist you with detailed and often
time-consuming process. As a nurse, you need to go for English
proficiency test before skills assessment or visa grant. The proficiency
in English language is achieved by taking either the Occupational
English Test (OET) or the International English Language Testing System
(IELTS). These Tests assess English language competency in a relevant
professional context without any compromise.
Planning and initiative
The Australian Health workforce institute last year found that 90,000
nurses are expected to retire before 2020. Institute Director, Peter
Brooks said Australia needs to get smart and continue negotiating with
other countries about hiring the nurses. He also asserted that Australia
need to look at expanding healthcare roles such as training less
qualified people to do repetitive tasks to free up highly qualified
doctors and nurses.
Health Minister John Hill said the State Government was aware of
workforce challenges and was working to provide more training and
recruit more overseas nurses. "Our goal is to ensure a strong workforce
in SA, while ensuring the highest clinical standards," he said.
"We have been proactive in supporting the Commonwealth in providing more
undergraduate places in nursing and more clinical placements in our
hospitals for graduates, and increasing scholarships.” He also assured
that Australia is in talks with Vietnam to support nursing education
enabling future recruitment for SA.
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