|
|
Dear John, New Zealand’s health system is crumbling due to critical staffing shortages. Yet, the Labour Government has not offered immediate residency to desperately needed health workers. Food technologists and ‘multimedia specialists’ have made the cut but not nurses and midwives. Every day brings new headlines about our health system’s abysmal staffing shortcomings, unsurprising when New Zealand is short around 4,000 nurses. Yet, Labour is doing nothing to attract nurses and midwives to New Zealand. Nurses and midwives are both on Australia’s priority skills list. If Australia offers them the certainty of immediate residency, why would they choose New Zealand where they have to wait two years before they are even eligible to apply? We need these workers and the skills they will bring right now. If continued to be unaddressed, we will hear worsening stories of 24-hour waits at Emergency Departments and patients forgoing critically important treatment altogether. We’ve been calling on the Labour Government to offer an immediate pathway to residency for nurses and midwives for months. The Immigration Minister has refused because of an unfounded belief that they might leave their profession. We’ve now launched a petition imploring Labour to immediately add nurses and midwives to the fast-track, to open the fast-track process immediately, and ensure the process of gaining residence is complete within three months of application. Until this Government takes action, Kiwis will continue to pay the price. Add your voice to the call to fast track nurses and midwives.
Erica Stanford |
|
|