Migrant nurses pushed towards rest homes

Immigration settings in spotlight as skilled staff from just two countries end up in sector of ‘horror stories’. By Katarina Williams.

A Filipino nurse believes migrant nurses are being funnelled into the Kiwi aged-care system, regardless of their expertise.

After working as an army nurse and in the Irish health system, Wellington-based Filipino aged-care nurse Miriam Villalba landed her first New Zealand nursing job in 2012.

Although aged care work was her ‘‘passion’’, she believed many foreign nurses were filtered into rest home work – even when their previous experience was in other sectors or they had a preference to work elsewhere.

‘‘Especially for the Indian and Filipino migrants, they are only offered placements in the aged care sector. [Employers] don’t actually check on the speciality of that nurse,’’ Villalba said.

‘‘Most of the nurses who come here are experienced . . . we bring cultural diversity and, by nature, [Filipinos] are a very loving, caring people.

‘‘We are flexible and we can adapt to lots of environments.’’

Rest home work generally offers less pay, lower nurse-topatient ratios and more challenging working conditions than hospital nursing, and enticing Kiwi nurses to switch their speciality is becoming difficult.

With around 11 per cent of rest home nursing jobs vacant, the New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA) is petitioning the Government to make it easier for private rest homes to recruit more international nurses to bridge the widening workforce gap.

Immigration New Zealand (INZ) figures released under the Official Information Act reveal about 93 per cent of the 600 nursing work visas granted over the past two years went to Indian and Filipino nurses caring for the elderly.

Of those, 557 work visas were given to nurses from India and the Philippines.

Filipino Nurses’ Association of New Zealand chair and Massey University lecturer Monina Hernandez said urgent attention was needed to attract more nurses of all nationalities.

‘‘The Government should address the need for nurses in aged care settings, encouraging a lot of the Kiwi youth who are going into nursing to go there, and provide programmes that could actually entice nurses working in acute settings to try out aged care nursing.

‘‘I do hear a lot of horror stories where there is one nurse looking after probably close to 10 or sometimes 20 patients, which of course is not right,’’ said Hernandez, the first Filipino nurse to be appointed to the New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation’s board of directors.

Aged care registered nurses featured on INZ’s Immediate Skills Shortage List, but assistant general manager visa services Karen Bishop said the agency was considering adding them to the long-term list as well. A decision is due in January.

With the over-85s population set to double over the next decade, NZACA chief executive Simon Wallace said the measure would have an immediate and much-needed impact.

‘‘It declares a national and ongoing shortage of registered nurses and it means that we can recruit overseas nurses without having to resort to this arduous labour market test process where you’ve got to prove that you can’t find a Kiwi.

‘‘It also gives those nurses a pathway to residency after two years.’’

Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway said one of the Government’s ‘‘top priorities’’ was to better match the skills and talents of migrant workers ‘‘to the skills that are needed, where they are needed and in the industries that need them, including the aged care sector’’.

‘‘Most of the nurses who come here are experienced ... we bring cultural diversity and, by nature, [Filipinos] are a very loving, caring people.’’ Miriam Villalba, Wellington rest home nurse