lilly1980

hey nephron, it's not great. it is still the "slow" season here, new grads start, and there are also some government cutbacks on the public hospitals (in melbourne) so i think all of that has been affecting it too. i can have a great week with 5 shifts and another with 2. if you are able to get in good with a particular hospital or unit where they request you then that helps a lot...but it's still not always enough. the experienced agency nurses as well as the agency itself keeps saying it will pick up. you can also sign on with multiple agencies, that can help too but all the agencies are affected.

Hey ajoo, No you don't need to be in Aus to start the process. It's ok if you don't have an address in Aus yet. It does help if you have an idea of which State or City you would like to work in so you can put the City down and mail any correspondence to the appropriate AHPRA branch. Good luck! I know it's lengthy, but if you have a chance you should go back and read the thread...it should be pretty helpful albeit in a random sequence of information. :)

Hey murphy5001! I'm currently working in Melbourne now as an acute care nurse. However, there did seem to be a need for mental health. At least I know there were a couple mental health nurses that work for my agency. You should contact an agency to get an idea of the need or realistic work availabilty. Plus there is the option of working for more than one agency if that's what you are planning on doing. And agency is like our registry nursing at home. The don't really have short term contracts available in the cities. As far as public health nursing...I have no idea I am signed up with Healthcare Australia and they were extremely helpful answering my thousands of questions during my transition, but there are other big ones, I know of Mediserve too. I think somewhere on this thread or another was posted a good list of big agencies in Australia. Hope this helps :)

tds74, i would love to pick your brain! from my understanding, shifts are typically 8hrs? are you finding enough work? 3-4 shifts a week? do you mind if i ask if you are from aus or from another country? i'm coming in a few weeks from los angeles and am signed on with HCA. thanks!

hey britgirl, the agency that has been most helpful for me is HCA (heathcare australia), they are nation wide so if you plan on traveling within the country, they can easily transfer your status and competencies over. (or at least that's what they tell me, i'm still in los angeles, but leaving in 3 weeks!!) they have also been very helpful in providing info for making the move, bank info, rental websites, tax information, etc... it was very hard to find any short term contracts in the big cities, ex. mebourne, sydney, and this means no accommodations either. from my research, it seems that the travel assignments with housing (more typical of US travel assignments) are more for the really rural areas like in the outback. so i am signed on with 2 agencies for work in melbourne, and hopefully that should cover my shifts. hope this helps!

Hey, No, no one responded, but I found some agencies that were listed on another thread that I've contacted. :) And according to one of the agencies, there is plenty of work. So here's hoping!

Etoile...just tried sending you a private message but it says you've met your PM quota..guess you need to delete some msgs or something :)

Etoile...I'd love to meet up for coffee :) no, not too creepy haha, I'll send you my email address.

Hey! No unfortunately insurance doesn't cover it since it is elective, and it HAS to be an immigration MD. I think they are worried about someone forging MD reports and you have to bring a couple forms of ID or something and passport pics to the physical (I'm assuming to make sure you are actually the person getting the physical). The fees for the physical, labs, and xray were around $300+ but with the visa application fees it totaled $500-600. When you call to make the appointment they tell you how much it will all cost. They seemed very competent with the paperwork being sent to Washington DC. (That's where I sent mine to.) As far as the time of year, I would think summer there is quite nice. And since many people take their holiday with Xmas and new years being around then, there might be more availability. But this is all my speculation, seeing how I'm still working on the getting a job part. :) However, I do know a lot of the new nurses start in the hospitals around Dec/Jan time too, so a lot of hospitals are putting a lot of effort into their new RNs. (so all that said...i have no idea what time of year would be best to find a job...haha)

Hey Ladies! Becky - For my visa, I submitted all the supporting documents with the visa. It just made me feel more comfortable sending everything together that way. They got back to me pretty quickly and told me I needed to do my health assessment because I would be working in a hospital. This is out of pocket, so you pay for a physical, labs, and a chest xray (r/o TB). You can't go to your pcp, but it has to be a gov't approved MD. In cali, there was one in LA and I think San Fran. There's a list online, but some states only had 1 approved immigration MD you could see. I was lucky and this MD was in westchester (near LAX). This all cost me about $500-600. They will send all the info to the Australian gov't for your visa. Once that was completed, I think I got my visa 2 weeks later. You can do the whole medical thing first before you submit your visa, but I didn't want to spend the money in case they immediately said no to my application and I didn't want to waste going through that whole process until I heard back from the visa people. The whole process for the visa for me went quite quick, total 3 weeks. Just know that once you are granted the visa, you have one year from that date to enter Australia to essentially activate your visa. Once you enter Australia you have a year from the date to stay in the country. Hope that helps or makes sense! :) Other Cali Ladies - I seriously just went to Disneyland last Saturday...lol. The new carsland ride is soooo cool!! I highly recommend it and checking out radiator springs at night! The line is long, but depending on your group size, single rider is a good option, and unless you hit the fast pass line right when the park opens, they usually run out. Cheers!

Esperanza, I had to provide the same information as well about my clinical hours. I called the school's program office and they told me there is a minimum hours that the program must meet for the California BRN, my particular program was a few hours over with each class. I think it is around 50+ hours, but I had to have the school provide supplemental letters for the AHPRA (on their letterhead etc..) I emailed the program coordinator and I was lucky enough to still live close enough to drive to pick the the letters (to expedite the process)...and brought them some portos too :) I'm in Los Angeles too...South Bay more specifically!

They didn't email me that they received my paperwork aside from my initial application. They usually just responded with another request for more documents and finally my eligibility letter. My deadline was close to approaching as well and I was traveling to the east coast for a week and between work, there was no way I could get the info to them in time including mail time and getting the docs from my school. So I sent a web inquirty to request for an extension to my deadline. I was extremely frustrated at that point, and let them know that too...haha. But they extended it. By the last piece of paperwork they needed, I was soooo over it. I was almost about to give up but knew that I couldn't have spent all that time and $$ for nothing. And that hopefully they were making jump thru hoops so that they could approve my application. As far as your documents, did you certify them or send they with a notifcation that were delievered? I would recommend doing that in the future. You don't need the super expensive option, but just a tracking number or something is helpful. But, believe me...I feel your pain...hang in there!

Etoile, OMG...it took me forever! Partially because I received my BSN in an accelerated program, which I don't think they are familiar with, so I had several requests for additional information. After I mailed them the documents (and apparently I couldn't even send it fedex because it's a global post office box) it took about 10 days...snail mail status. I would typically get a response 1 week -2 weeks after via email. Sometimes it wasn't clear what they needed and what I interepreted wasn't always what they wanted, so that was a bit frustrating. In total it took me 5 months after several correspondences...(I did have some delays waiting for documents from my school so that cost me a good month +...so all in all, I would say it took me 3-4 months.) Hopefully, yours will be much faster :)

Esperanza, Looks like based on Etoile88 response "the minimum education requirement for a registered nurse in Australia is a Bachelor degree"...bummer...

Hey Esperanza! Hopefully one day we can all meet up in Sydney...haha :) As far as qualifications for the AHPRA, I have a BSN, so I don't know about an associates degree. However, in all my research and reading, I don't recall seeing anything that specified the requirements in the paperwork. But I suggest going to the AHPRA website and submitting a web inquiry. They have been very quick in their email responses usually 48 hours. Good luck! :)