Hospital/clinic recommendations in Sydney for US RN?

[fly-gal]

Hi, I'm currently a nurse in San Francisco and am planning to move out to Australia for a year with my husband after the New Year. I've been a RN for about a year and work on a telemetry floor with 1:4 ratio. We are required to cannulate, titrate drips, do emergent EKGs, read basic tele., dress wounds, give meds among other things. Our patient acuity definitely has shot up. We try to get our CABG patients out the door in 5-7 days post-op. They often come out of the ICU direct to us in 1-2 days.

Just wondering:

1) how does Australia nursing compare. My unit is considered "floor nursing" which is 2 steps away from the ICU (we have ICU, step-down unit, then floor).

2) Any suggestions on good places to work. I don't really mind either way to go back to telemetry (maybe even rehab or clinic work might be a nice change) - just as long as it isn't quite as stressful as my current job. I literally RUN all 12 hours of my shift and am in a constant state of panic not entirely attributed to my recent new grad. status (the experienced RNs also run around trying to get everything done). I am thinking it may be because I work in a State hospital so we do get people who leave it until they are deathly ill to come in. Perhaps private hospitals have lower acuity (and better pay)? I am also mainly looking for good staff. I have been spoilt by the most wonderful co-workers ever. Pretty much everyone is into mentoring, teaching, and teamwork. I never feel that I don't have back-up and I love to hang out with my co-workers.

I will probably apply by an agency so any recommendations for those would be great to. Thanks!

[ruthiebaby88]

i work in orthopedic unit which is of course a completely different story to tele but i had a great experience at st.vincent's hospital - their standards were very high and they were voted the best hospital in australia by patients in a magazine survey - they are also kind to their staff- they have a public and a private sector

their sister hospital is the mater and is also excellent

[fly-gal]

i work in orthopedic unit which is of course a completely different story to tele but i had a great experience at st.vincent's hospital - their standards were very high and they were voted the best hospital in australia by patients in a magazine survey - they are also kind to their staff- they have a public and a private sector

their sister hospital is the mater and is also excellent

Hi Ruthie,

Where is st. vincent's located? That's great they were voted best by patients - always a good sign. So how does it work that they are both public and private? How does one get hired then - do you have to apply for public or private or are you an employee of both?

thanks!

[ruthiebaby88]

http://wwwsvh.stvincents.com.au/

5 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, 2 km from Sydney's Central Business District, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

here's the link for their website - they are near the center - a lot of travelers (including many irish) live in bondi which has very convenient transport connections to st v's

well with my sponsored visa i wasn't allowed to work in the public sector of the hospital - i was on contract with a particular unit for 3 months, as were most of the other nurses i worked with - i think they prefer this to moving people around - although of course we did sometimes have less permanent agency people

[ruthiebaby88]

but from what i gather the public and private were 2 buildings sitting right next to each other - the public would get er patients or people without insurance - while the private would mostly care for scheduled surgical patients with private insurance cover

on a sponsored business visa - you can sign up to work directly for the hospital if you are willing to sign up for a full year - the hospitals i talked to weren't interested in any shorter term of employment - if you want to have the flexibility to move around you should have an agency sponsor you visa - this means that you won't be able to work at public hospitals in new south wales (unless with special permission) - the reason being that whomever sponsors your visa is supposed to keep you on their payroll and nsw has recently passed a law stating that only nurses on the hospital payroll may work at public hospitals - so basically they won't pay the agency

from the nurses i spoke to working in the private side - they all seemed to think that the private side was better - that the public side had poorer staffing and was more stressful

[Spiderella]

I just wanted to say that this thread was very useful. Thanks to everyone who contributed.