The executive director of the International Council of Nurses, Howard Catton, said there was already a global shortage of about 6 million nurses before the pandemic began.
“We think it could have doubled to 12 or 13 million,” he said, blaming a long-term failure to plan and invest in the nursing workforce.
The federal government will host an employment and skills summit in Canberra in early September to find solutions to labor shortages across the country.
On Friday, Albanese announced that the government was expanding a program that brings workers from the Pacific island nations to Australia to address the shortage of critical skills, opening it up to sectors such as care for the elderly, the tourism and hospitality.
“This is good for our Pacific Islanders because it allows more women to participate in the program,” the prime minister told reporters in Fiji.
“It’s also good for Australia because they are areas where there is a shortage of massive competition.”
Howard said that while migration played a role in filling nursing positions, relying heavily on foreign workers was “a high-risk strategy” as the market became more competitive. .
There is a global shortage of nurses after two years of the pandemic. Credit: Justin McManus
“It’s not the same safe, quick fix solution that was in the past,” he said.
A major private hospital and senior care operator who spoke on condition of anonymity said labor shortages were critical, with more than 11 percent of registered nurse vacancies. and 6 percent of vacant registered nurse positions.
The provider called for personal care workers to be added to the skilled migration list and said that while registered nurses were already there, the “bureaucratic bureaucracy” prevented nurses from migrating to Australia and employment agencies. hiring charged tens of thousands per worker.
“It takes a nurse more than nine months to get a permanent residence visa in Australia, but three weeks to get one in the UK,” they said.
The president of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Clare Skinner, said the pandemic had exposed and exacerbated the crisis in the existing healthcare workforce, with a lack of staff pushing even more workers to leave due to of exhaustion.
“Australia must also train an adequate healthcare workforce to meet its own needs and the needs of the region, in addition to enabling an international movement of trained doctors,” he said.
Mike Baird, the former prime minister of NSW and executive director of HammondCare care provider for the elderly, on Thursday called on the government to review the Australia Pacific Job Mobility Plan to allow nursing homes to metropolitan seniors participate, after a pilot in remote areas.
There are 25,000 workers in the Pacific who are in Australia with the work plan, which the government will expand to allow workers to travel with their families, who were previously excluded.
With AAP
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