Health Minister Ayesha Verrall says it is an important step towards creating more opportunities for New Zealanders to become a nurse. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
The government has announced a range of measure to try and tackle the nursing workforce shortage.
This morning it announced it would add a further 830 clinical placements for nursing students.
Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said an increase in clinical placement opportunities meant hundreds more home-grown nurses could gain their registration to work in New Zealand.
"Clinical placements are a requirement of the Nursing Council of New Zealand and an integral part of their nursing practice education. Boosting our workforce with more nurses in our hospitals, health centres, aged residential care facilities and communities means more care for everyone."
She said they were hoping to fast-track 130 nurses in this year's July and August intake - nurses who were on a waiting list, and who otherwise would have been deferred to 2024.
"There are shortages in our nursing workforce and we are committed to training more nurses to help address that."
For the 2024 intake, Te Whatu Ora would also be working with nurse education providers to support an additional 700 clinical placements nationwide, Verrall said.
"This means that from 2024 we are supporting a significant increase in the number of nurses we train domestically, currently around 7400, boosting the growth of our future nursing workforce by an estimated 10 percent."
Since the end of 2021, the government has recruited 1000 more nurses and increased pay for most nurses by 14 percent, Verrall said.
"We are starting to see results. More than 8000 nurses registered for the first time in the 2022/23 registration year, a 60 percent increase from the around 5000 nurses who registered for the first time in the previous year.
Verrall said the initiative responds to the New Zealand Nurses Organisation's Maranga Mai campaign, which calls for more people training to be nurses.
"This boost is an important step towards creating more opportunities for New Zealanders to become a nurse."
"It's something I am absolutely delighted to support," Verrall said.