To date, only 31 per cent of nurses and 22 per cent of doctors signed up three years ago to the "popular" voluntary bonding scheme have stepped forward to claim payouts.
It is early days yet, but it is the first performance feedback on how many of the nearly 900 health graduates signing up to the scheme back in May 2009 remained or found jobs in the targeted regions or specialties.
In all, 680 nurses, 115 doctors, and 95 midwives signed up for the “high trust low bureaucracy” scheme’s first cohort by the end of May 2009. By the end of June, 215 nurses and 25 doctors of that first cohort have so far applied and been approved for bond payouts. The greatest response rate has been from midwives, with 39 (41 percent) having successfully been approved bond payouts.
Nursing Review asked Health Minister Tony Ryall whether the nurse and doctor payout rates to date showed the "popular" scheme was meeting its goal (last year, Ryall said the “scheme’s continuing popularity demonstrates how well it is meeting its goal of encouraging New Zealand-trained health professionals to establish their careers at home”).
Ryall said it was a “great result” that 280 nurses, doctors, and midwives who had chosen to work in hard-to-staff communities and specialties had received bonding payouts. But he declined to answer what percentage of "bonded" graduates receiving payouts (i.e. completed their three-year terms) would be required to demonstrate the scheme was meeting the Government’s goal – or the timeframe involved.
He did say the Government expected to continue receiving applications for payments as people became eligible for payments under the flexible scheme, as some graduates may have taken parental leave or not found a job in their hard-to-staff specialty immediately.
Health Workforce New Zealand said there were plans for an evaluation of the scheme to “begin shortly”, and Ryall said he understood a review of the scheme was due to take place in the “coming months”.
The first cohort of 680 nurses was eligible for $8,500 cut off their student loan if they remained or found work in the then-nominated "hard-to-staff" areas of theatre, ICU, and cardiothoracic nursing for three years. At time of registration, 238 of the nurses were already working in those specialties and 445 intended to.
How many more of the 2009 cohort of graduates are eligible, or will be eligible shortly, is unknown as there has been no tracking or contact of "bonded" graduates.
Of the nurses who have received payouts to date, 140 have been working in theatre, 41 in intensive care, and 24 in cardiothoracic (specialty information was not available for the other ten nurses).
So far, 280 of the 345 health graduates from the first cohort have been approved for payouts, and 65 applications have been declined or are awaiting further information.
In the first three years of the scheme, in total, 1398 nurses, 219 doctors, and 175 midwives – all recent graduates – have signed up. Registration for the 2012 cohort closes on July 13.
