Director of education at The Gordon Institute and veteran nurse Sue Spozetta welcomed the state government’s recent announcement of a $270 million nursing and midwifery package, but said nursing required urgent attention at the federal level.
The initiative will provide free degrees, training, and upskilling for nurses and midwives from 2023.
Ms Spozetta said while the Victorian government’s nursing and midwifery package would help attract more nurses, more needed to be done.
“Any initiative at all that can bring people into nursing, I’m 100 percent behind it,” Ms Spozetta said.
“But to retain nurses, the biggest thing is wages, and after that it’s about wellness. Especially during COVID-19, there was no room for people to take wellness time, because there wasn’t anyone else to do the job.
“Any job that deals with life-threatening or life-critical incidents needs more support for the wellness of its people. Having been in the job and watching people burn out and leave in droves, it’s obviously not being looked at, it’s still not a priority.
“When I started nursing we used to have debriefing sessions, because some of the shifts are quite awful. It’s a small thing, but those niceties don’t exist because there’s no money to pay for it.”
Quarterly data from the National Skills Priority List (SPL) released on Thursday, October 6 revealed nursing is the highest in-demand profession in Australia.
The SPL report on the data highlighted 9,266 advertised vacancies for registered nurses, more than double that in 2020, and noted that all 12 registered nurse occupations on its list were in shortage in 2022.
The Australian College of Nursing (ACN) has also called for greater investments targeting the recruitment and retention of nurses after the release of the SPL data.
ACN CEO Adjunct Professor Kylie Ward said the data was unsurprising to nurses and the workforce crisis needed to be addressed.
“The data draws attention to the urgent need to recruit and retain nurses,” Adjunct Professor Ward said.
“Retention must be a priority focus,” she said.
“An easy-to-implement solution is to support nurses of all ages and career levels to receive leadership training and professional development.
“This will assist with recruitment and retention by demonstrating our extensive skills and value, as well as providing a clear pathway for early-career nurses looking to progress their careers.
“We have recently advocated for a one-off waiving of HECS debt, improved support for overseas nurses wishing to call Australia home and a tax-free pandemic bonus.”
