Labour’s legacy – nurses leaving

This is part of Labour’s legacy:

More than 9000 New Zealand nurses have registered to work in Australia in the past 10 months – about 12 percent of the active workforce.

The rate of nurses expressing interest is growing, despite a boost in pay last year.

Any nurse wanting to work in Australia must first get a registration with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra).

The latest figures show an average of 900 a month had signed up in the 10 months until January. In April last year, the average was 625 a month over eight months. . . 

Registering to work doesn’t mean all these nurses will cross the Tasman to work but it is an indictment on the mess Labour made of the health system that so many are contemplating it.

Who can blame them for seeking better pay and conditions than staying here where so many hospitals are understaffed, and nurses are overworked and underpaid?

The last government wasted millions of dollars restructuring the health system instead of addressing the problems of staff shortages across the sector.

That so many are considering leaving to work in Australia is a result of that and part of Labour’s legacy of spending too much money in the wrong places and too little where it was, and still is, desperately needed.