Sunshine Coast battling nursing crisis
Wed 12 November 2008
Jacqueline Lewis, Journalism Major
International nursing shortages are affecting the Sunshine Coast, forcing educational institutions and hospitals to investigate new methods to boost the failing industry.
Noosa Hospital nurse-unit manager Jill Mc-Evoy Williams notes the Sunshine Coast is not immune from the nursing crisis, and says one of the worst elements of nursing is job demands resulting in insufficient patient care.
“Nurses want to have job satisfaction…they want to feel that they’ve [looked] after their patients 100 per cent, and [they] don’t get that nowadays,” Ms Mc-Evoy Williams says.
“The rate at which we are currently putting out nurses and putting them through university, in the next 10 years, we’re going to be something like 15, 000 registered nurses short on the Sunshine Coast alone.” 
A 2005 submission to the Productivity Commission Health Workforce Enquiry reinforces Ms McEvoy-Williams’ view, stating nursing is essential to “all bed based health care service” and that nurses’ job dissatisfaction stems from “poor management cultures and unsupportive management policies and practices”.
It notes many nurses leave the profession because they feel they are unable to provide adequate patient treatment.
University of the Sunshine Coast associate nursing professor Janet Allan agrees, saying she believes a range of factors contribute to the international nursing shortage.
“It’s not absolutely due to the fact that we’re not producing nurses, it’s that they’re not staying as nurses once they’ve commenced working,” Dr Allan says.
“One of the difficulties…working in a system where there is a shortage of staff is that you work harder, you burn out more quickly, [and] you see that patients aren’t receiving the care you’d like to be giving them because you’re too busy.”
Ms Mc-Evoy Williams says recruiting nurses is a high priority, but adds employing staff is challenging due to the variety of available job choices.
“Personally, what I find is that nurses can pick and choose where they want to work,” Ms Mc-Evoy Williams says.
“[Other places are] offering better flexibility, better hours…it’s hard to roster skill mixes appropriately to keep patients safe when people have got the option of working elsewhere and doing more what they want to do.”
New strategies are being employed across Australia to address the nursing shortage, including introducing nursing degrees at TAFE educational institutions.
An article in The Australian says the Australian Nursing Federation, among other nursing professional bodies, is rallying against the introduction of these TAFE degrees, claiming it lowers the standing of the nursing profession and that the program would not provide quality education and training.
Dr Allan believes universities and tertiary institutions are a vital component of nurses’ education. “We fought long and hard to get nursing into the tertiary sector,” Dr Allan says.
“What we do now in nursing is very different from what we did in our hospital training, where you were an employee.”
Ms Mc-Evoy Williams agrees, noting misconceptions about, and inequalities in, the nursing industry need to be addressed.
“I think the problem is that there’s still a great divide between the medical and nursing professions,” Ms Mc-Evoy Williams says.
“Years ago we had the change from hospital based training to university based training…to give credence to the nursing profession, to make them more credible as a profession.
“The general public tend to think nurses are nurses because they could never make it as a doctor, [but] it’s a completely different job.
“[They’re not] handmaidens to doctors, they are actually credible, professional people.”
Ms McEvoy-Williams also says nurses’ education needs to involve more practical hospital training to prepare students for the reality of the profession.
“I think the training needs to come back more to the hospitals because…you weeded people out more quickly,” Ms McEvoy-Williams says.
“Nowadays [nursing students] don’t get anywhere near [the training] we used to get…they come out as a registered nurse and suddenly realise they have to do everything.
“I don’t think they have 100 per cent clear view of what they’re actually getting themselves into.”
Dr Allan believes more plans to encourage nurses to stay in the profession would ease the nursing crisis.
“What’s needed is more strategies put in place in the healthcare sector to keep nurses and to get them back in,” Dr Allan says.
“To raise the numbers, we have to prepare people for an environment where they’re going to stay.
“They also have to see nurses out there who are practising and loving their work, and being good role models.
“Things like pay are not really an issue…That would not be the reason someone left nursing, generally speaking.”
Ms Mc-Evoy Williams adds a sense of humour is essential for coping with the stress of being a nurse.
“There’s a lot of stuff that you have to be able to just laugh off, and that’s not because you don’t care, and it’s not because you find it particularly funny, but because, if you took it seriously, you would probably never come back to work the next day,” Ms Mc-Evoy Williams says.Image(s) designed by Jacqueline Lewis
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Submitted Comments
I totally disagree with this articl as salary and pay should be the first priority. No person would do nursing and have to pay more than half their salary to put thir children in child care. Wake up Ms Mc-Evoy, the nursing crisis will become worse if the pay is not increased drastically.
Jiohn