Bringing in overseas nurses on short-term caregiver visas and sending them back home if they fail language tests, is being proposed as an “innovative” response to aged-care nursing shortages.
But nurses’ union NZNO says the New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA) proposal leaves immigrant nurses vulnerable and is no answer to staffing difficulties in the sector.
Martin Taylor, NZACA chief executive says the association is still waiting to hear back from Immigration Minister Jonathan Coleman on its proposal for boosting the aged-care nursing workforce.
It is calling for immigration policy to formally allow foreign-trained registered nurses into the country on 18-month caregiver visas while they study towards the English-language (IELTS) and competency assessment programme (CAP) requirements for New Zealand registration.
It also suggests “sufficient incentives” for nurses to pass the IELTS test and complete CAP including “perhaps” being sent back to their home country if they don’t succeed within 18 months.
The association’s proposal called for a trial of the proposal which he acknowledged would not be a “panacea” for challenging staffing problems in the sector, but it would assist foreign-trained nurses to put their English language to use and to increase the level of care in the sector.
Taylor said technically under current immigration policy foreign-trained nurses cannot enter New Zealand to work as caregivers, but exceptions have been made to allow nurses working towards IELTS or CAP approval to enter as caregivers, with about 350 to 980 caregiver work permits granted annually in recent years. He said this exception had been used by association members to attract staff but there was no consistency policy used and the association was seeking a formal policy to be put in places with incentives for nurses to gain registration within 18 months.
Rob Haultain, NZNO aged-care industrial advisor, said the reality was that the IELTS test was “absurdly difficult” and there was already a “pretty powerful incentive” for foreign RNs to earn about $10 an hour more if they successfully passed the test. “It’s not that people are disinterested or casual about trying to achieve their IELTS.”
She said it was better for nurses to sit IELTS in their home country rather than going into debt to make the move to New Zealand – particularly if they were forced to return on failing the test. New migrant nurses were already terribly vulnerable and had been exploited by some shady operators. Haultain said the aged-care association should instead be focusing on improving its staff retention through improving working conditions and pay.
Gina Langlands, general quality manager of of the large aged-care provider BUPA said the proposal could be viewed as “creative” but not currently something they needed to look at as their approved CAP programme met their RN recruiting needs.
She said it did not recruit caregivers from overseas and the overseas-trained nurses coming on to its six-week bonded programmes have met all other Nursing Council requirements for registration including language tests.
Nursing Council chief executive Carolyn Reed said her only comment was that the council had worked hard to inform nurses in other countries not to come to New Zealand until they had passed the language test requirements.
She said it took that stand after seeing the human toll of the “huge cost” financially and emotionally of nurses moving to New Zealand and then failing the test. Reed said there was no proposal to change the current IELTS requirements and it regularly monitored other countries requirements and New Zealand was currently more liberal than Australia in allowing nurses to accrue passes over several sittings.
Langlands said BUPA lent the nurses the $5000 cost of the course and money to cover other costs of attending the programmes. She said it had had about 50 nurses through its programme – about half of whom were already in the country working in non-nursing roles. The programmes are currently oversubscribed and BUPA is planning to run eight courses this year compared with five last year.
