Loophole to get New Zealand licensure without 2 years experience?

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Hi everyone,

I am a U.S. trained nurse with my BSN. I'm interested in working in NZ as a nurse, but I looked up the requirements for licensure and it appears that NZ requires two years of experience. I would ideally be able to move in January or February of next year, and by that time I will only have 1 year of Emergency Room experience. I'm wondering if there's any way around that requirement?

I was looking around to see if there were any possibilities, and it looked like if you are a nurse in Australia, you can get your NZ license without experience. I looked up Australian RN licensure and it appeared that you can get it without experience. I was wondering if I could apply for licensure to Australia, and then apply for licensure to New Zealand to get around the experience requirement.

Any information would be such a huge help!!! I have no idea how to go about figuring this out, but if it were possible to get licensure and a job in NZ with only a year of experience, it would be a dream come true. I know that figuring out licensure is just one piece of the puzzle, so if anyone has advice information on how easy/hard it is to get nursing jobs with one year of experience, or visa information, any or all would be incredibly appreciated!!

Thank you so much!!!

Amelie

I tried looking in to it and there's a lot of info to sort through, so kudos to you for making some headway!

Best bet is to contact the NZ Nursing Council directly via e-mail [email protected] or tele +64-4-385 9589

I'm sure you have this page bookmarked already: Applying for registration as an internationally qualified nurse - Nursing Council NZ It seems there's a few changes/updates effective March 1, 2013.

Best of luck! NZ seems to have gorgeous scenery!

I think you will find all nurses to New Zealand must have 2 years experience even Aussies. The checklist asked for a breakdown of employment hours which is attached to the application PDF. Best email the nursing council, but Australian new grads I have not heard of any going there for work, though many NZ grads are in grad program's in Australia.

Specializes in L&D, Nursery, and Post-Partum.

Ceridwyn is correct. Before the new guideline kicked in, you only needed 450 hours if you had an Aussie license. Now, everyone has to have 2500 hours, or so they told me.

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