Some earthquake-related turnover will see Canterbury District Health Board take on a record number of new graduates in 2012, including a number of out-of-town applicants.
The DHB is looking to swell its January nurse entry to training programme (NETP) intake from the usual 50 to 60, and its community partners will take about six into the expansion programme.
Mary Gordon, executive director of nursing, said the DHB had seen small increases in turnover following major aftershocks, particularly the June quakes, and also after residential zoning decisions.
“What is amazing is that the number of nurses who have left [is] a very small portion of our nursing workforce, and there are significant numbers of nurses who have been impacted by the aftermath of the quakes who continue to work in our health system.”
Becky Hickmott, the DHB’s new graduate programme coordinator, said it had 130 applicants for its January intake. It had about seven “no-shows” to its assessment day and 22 who declined job offers, the majority of those local, including some who had already accepted earlier offers. All positions had now been filled.
“We probably have a higher-than-expected number coming from outside the area than we normally would.”
Quake-resilient graduates snapped up
More than 90 per cent of Christchurch’s final year nursing students had job offers by the time they sat state finals last month.
Cathy Andrew, head of CPIT’s nursing school, said 82 of the 88 students sitting state finals had job offers, with 73 of those going into new graduate programmes. This year CPIT also had nine graduates heading across the Tasman, five to Adelaide and two each to Sydney and Melbourne.
She said that while a number had applied and accepted programmes outside of Canterbury, she had no sense that more were seeking to leave Christchurch than other years.
She said students had been very resilient despite the quakes, the school having to temporarily shift to Lincoln and losing a number of weeks of teaching time. The third-year class had only one student withdraw and the school had overall seen five students withdraw because of the quakes.
“They have done remarkably well. They were incredibly tired at the end of the year, understandably, and a lot of them had multiple relocations throughout the year. But they got there and full credit to them really.”
Andrew said that soon after the February quake, students were desperately ringing around the country and even overseas trying to transfer, but had been reassured when they knew a plan was in place to allow them to sit state finals in November.
“Our actual BN student numbers are over what we predicted, which means overall our attrition was less than normal.”
She said it had been a tiring year for staff, but they had paced themselves well and were also very grateful for the incredible support from NETS and other nursing schools, including helping with marking. “That’s really helped us immensely.”
