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January 5, 2012 – Good news for nurses planning to apply for Australian working visa and work in Australia.

Currently, there is a shortage of doctors and nurses in Australia, particularly in regional areas and Nurses are currently in high demand in Australia with opportunities for permanent and temporary work available, according to the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

In the Subclass 457 – Business (Long Stay) Australia skilled visa State/Territory Statistics summary report in the 2011-12 program year to 30 November 2011, from July to end November 2011, the number of subclass 457 primary Australian skilled visa primary applications granted was only 410, having a -5.9% change as compared to the same period last program year.

Now, with the declining health workforce population as the country’s ageing health workforce begins to retire, Australia is now being faced with a worsening shortage of health professionals.

The Australian state government is now relying on overseas nurses under Australian work visa in order to be able to fill the bulk of about 150 vacancies in Hunter hospitals. These positions were created by a Coalition election promise to add 1400 nurses to the NSW hospital system.

The Hunter New England Local Health District revealed that they are utilizing specialist recruitment agencies to bring in staff under the 457 Australia working visa, mainly from India as the recent local advertising for nurses and midwives fails to attract response.

Moreover, with figures of the labor force between 55 and 65 years that almost doubled to 13.8% as compared to 1998, which was less than 8.3%, Brett Holmes, General Secretary of the NSW Nurses Association, stated that the nursing profession was already suffering from a serious skills shortage and the state was predicting a shortfall of about 10,000 health professionals by 2028.

In addition, as Australian hospitals are finding ways to recruit more nurses, the Australian nurses who want to return to work after time away are now facing new barriers to employment in the form of “recency of practice” laws.

The new national nursing standards now require anyone out of the job for between five and 10 years to pay $10,000 up front for a compulsory refresher course. This means that non practicing nurses who were out of the nursing practice for 10 years must sit again their undergraduate degree.

With these situations, the Australian healthcare system will now be facing a worsening skills shortage.

source:
theherald.com.au