Train your own nurses, Australia told amid global shortage

The international nurses’ union says Australia needs to train its own nurses instead of poaching from overseas, as a Filipino academic warned her country was also running short amid a recruitment spree by wealthy nations.

International Council of Nurses chief executive Howard Catton said the ethics of signing up nurses from developing countries had become even more problematic during the coronavirus pandemic when the global shortage of nurses, estimated to be 6 million in 2020, doubled.

Nurses from the Philippines are in high demand around the world. Pictured is Ethel Lydia Matias, working in Dubai.Credit: AP

Professor Teresita Irigo-Barcelo, former dean of the College of Nursing at Centro Escolar University in Manila and a former national president of the Philippine Nurses Association, said she did not agree with rich countries such as Australia poaching nurses from the Philippines.

“Our country needs our own nurses to care for our own citizens,” Irigo-Barcelo told this masthead. “We are also experiencing a shortage of nurses.”

Catton said developed countries such as Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, which are competing fiercely for nurses, had failed to properly plan and train their own.

“There has been a chronic underinvestment in nursing education and in the healthcare workforce,” he said. “The workforce planning arrangements have been woeful.”

He said high-income countries had been too relaxed about relying on overseas nurses, but this approach was becoming increasingly risky because of the growing global shortage and increased competition, while domestic nursing workforces shrank due to ageing and attrition.

Catton estimated the current nurse shortage at 12 to 13 million globally. Medical journal The Lancet published a paper in May that found the global shortage of nurses and midwives was 30.6 million.

The Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association (APNA), representing 91,000 nurses working outside of hospitals, said the federal government should focus on training local nurses to fill aged care roles.

APNA president Karen Booth said the association’s student nurse placement program could be scaled up and co-ordinated nationally to create a pipeline of motivated and skilled nurses who could help alleviate the staffing crisis in aged care as a more sustainable approach.

Australian College of Nursing president Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward said improving aged care nurses’ pay, which is subject to a Fair Work Commission case backed by the federal government, was needed to attract more nurses to the sector.

Ward said the college was “strongly advocating” for the government to fund postgraduate nursing degrees, including in the gerontological specialisation.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said overseas nurses will play a role in staffing aged care homes under new mandatory minimum staffing rules his government is seeking to legislate, with a bill tabled in parliament on Wednesday.

The reforms, a key Labor election promise, include making it mandatory for aged care homes to have a registered nurse on site 24 hours a day from July 2023.

Health Department modelling commissioned by the former government showed an extra 14,000 nurses would be needed to deliver on the Coalition’s promise to require aged care homes to have a registered nurse on-site for 16 hours a day by October 2023.

The Labor government is working on new visa rules to attract more nurses from overseas, amid reports nurses wanting to come to Australia have found the system too slow, with processing wait times of several months.

Last year, a government scheme to import 2000 overseas health professionals to meet chronic nursing shortages recruited just 24 workers.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the government was working on a national nursing workforce strategy to meet Australia’s current and future needs.

“Australia owes a debt of gratitude to nurses, and the government has made clear commitments to boost their workforce in the aged care and health sectors,” he said.

“This is informed by the WHO global code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel.”

Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has directed her department to devote more staff to address the current visa backlog.

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