Josephine Gagan, CEO of the country’s largest provider of home and community support services, New Zealand Health Group, is fully supporting a shift in immigration settings to allow trained migrant nurses to fast-track the residency pathway and alleviate the significant workforce shortage.

“We need to be doing everything we can to increase the numbers of skilled nurses who can fill vacancies across the entire healthcare sector, including in the community.

“It doesn’t make any sense to exclude the nursing profession from applying for accelerated residency – surely, we need to be making it easier and more attractive, not more difficult, for highly trained nurses to live in New Zealand and care for our ill, injured, disabled and elderly people,” said Ms Gagan.

“The scarcity of nurses has reached a crisis point and many vulnerable Kiwis are being left without the critical healthcare they need, yet the Government is not prioritising nursing in the same way as migrants in other professions such as doctors, engineers, and scientists.

“This decision is having a significant impact on the injured, ill, disabled, and elderly New Zealanders who need specialised care and support from a nurse to enable them to stay at home. Ironically, this could mean people who would otherwise be at home could end up in a hospital or other facility, which is also struggling from the nurse shortage, or receive inadequate care.

“It’s really disheartening for everyone involved. While New Zealand Health Group is currently looking for 33 registered nurses to work in the community, we know this is just the tip of the iceberg.

“For many overseas nurses, New Zealand’s immigration settings means moving here isn’t a viable option especially compared to other countries such as Australia where they not only pay more but residency can be gained quickly. Our team are working on ways to recruit nurses to fill the vacancies, including offering incentives, but unless there is a change to the immigration settings, the task is seemingly impossible.

“The current immigration settings need urgent attention and we’re asking the Government to make a commitment to include trained migrant nurses within the straight-to-residence pathway,” said Ms Gagan.

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