The country has imported literally thousands of nurses over the past few months yet whether they are being employed as nurses is another matter.
Just what is going on with HealthNZ and it nurses is, at best, opaque, in that it will not release anything but broad general statistics and even then, they are months old.
All we know is that there up to 6000 immigrant nurses have arrived this year but it seems most of them are not working.
The question of how many of the extra nurses HealthNZ has employed is critical to any estimate of its budget deficit, currently estimated at $1.3 billion for the current financial year.
POLITIK understands that each extra nurse costs around $130,000 to employ.
But the surplus is about get worse.
By the end of the year around 1000 student nurses are expected to graduate from various educational institutions.
No one really knows what has happened to the surplus immigrant nurses.
It is probable that many, if not most, of the new arrivals are not working as nurses but are doing other work or have already turned around and left the country.
The raw statistics are staggering.
Between December 31 last year to June 30 this year, the NZ Nursing Council registered an additional 7198 Internationally Qualified nurses.
Between December last year and March this year, the HealthNZ nursing workforce grew by 1198. Even that increase would add $155 million to the HealthNZ budget.
Health NZ’s Chief People officer, Andrew Slater, told POLITIK that the organisation does not yet have the figures for the March to June period but POLITIK believes it would seem unlikely that the bulk of the 6000 new immigrant nurses have suddenly been employed by HealthNZ.
Slater’s inability to supply the June quarter figures is also interesting.
It is that quarter that has seen the biggest surge in overseas nurse registrations. They are up by 80 per cent on the March quarter.
What all this suggests is that someone in the Government has panicked and either encouraged or turned a blind eye to this explosion n nurse migration with little regard as to whether they would be employed and what the impact might be on locally trained nurses about to graduate.
Nevertheless, Slater is proud of the increasing HealthNZ nursing numbers.
“Health New Zealand highly values our nursing workforce, which has always been made up of both New Zealand trained nurses and internationally qualified nurses (IQNs),” he said.
We’ve made good progress with recruitment.
“Data to March 2024 shows there are now more nurses employed by our hospitals than ever before, with 29,404 full time equivalent (FTE) nurses employed by Health NZ across the country.”
Over the past six months international recruitment has focused on Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, and the US.
POLITIK understands from a source that many of the flood of international recruits have been induced to come to New Zealand with an upfront cash payment of $10,000.
Slater confirms that some, but not all, have.
“While there is provision to support some international nurses with relocation costs who are recruited through our targeted international recruitment campaigns, such as in mental health, in general Health NZ doesn’t pay immigration or relocation costs for internationally qualified nurses,” he said.
However, HealthNZ does reimburse immigrant nurses for completing the Competence Assessment Programme.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation has said that costs $10,000 per nurse.
Slater said that in the two years since the fund was established, 4460 migrant nurses had successfully received reimbursement.
Meanwhile, he said, the recruitment campaign was continuing.
“We continue to actively recruit nurses in specialist areas such as mental health and addictions, and critical care,” he said.
“Over the past six months international recruitment has focused on Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, and the US.”
The outlook for locally trained nurses is less certain.
“The process for filling year end graduate nursing positions is still in the initial stages and it’s too early to know how many graduate roles will be available for matching across the health sector,” he said.
“Our ACE recruitment process for nurses who will graduate at the end of this year is underway.
“As with previous years, we will support graduate nurses to find roles within Health NZ and in the wider sector such as primary health care, community, public health, private hospitals, or aged residential care.”
In April migrant nurses in Palmerston North staged a protest to highlight the plight of Indian nurses who had incurred heavy debts to come here but who did not have jobs.
They could not afford to return to India.
HealthNZ CEO Margie Apa has conceded that HealthNZ is over-budget with its nursing staff.
In March, there were 2,079 fulltime equivalent nurses over budget in the month and 878 for the year-to-date.
HealthNZ’s quarterly report to March 31 said: “Unbudgeted Care Capacity and Demand Management (CCDM) costs resulting in payment of higher-than-budgeted ordinary hours for nursing are the largest risk to achieving the desired surplus.
“In addition, settlement of collective agreements above budgeted levels, unfunded impact of pay equity, and Holidays Act payments on leave revaluations, are also increasing pressure on the budgeted expenditure levels.”
In short the reason for the HealthNZ Budget blowout is mostly nursing costs and that means that the thousands of migrant nurses and possibly the 1000 New Zealand graduates are going to find it even harder to get a job.
But the Government could turn off the migrant tap.
Nurses are still on the Green List which allows them to migrate here and straight away become eligible for New Zealand residence.
That is how the recruitment agencies attract migrants.
It is a major attractant yet it is likely to leave the country with literally thousands of unemployed, bitter, angry migrant nurses who will feel they have been conned.
