BRAGGY

Has anyone experienced working for Ihms (international health and medical services) as a mental health nurse? I have considered working in immigration detention, however, hold a some reservations. When I have inquired in the past, the hourly rate of pay has been flat, no shift loading or weekend or public holiday rates. A bonus payment was offered if and when a placement is completed. I would immagine the incident rate of DSH and or suicidal ideation/violence would be quiet high in immigration detention? The work load of a mental health practitioner in this setting would be high and considerably difficult to say the least.? I should also immagine your support by managment or other health professionals would be limited? Which really brings me back to my original question can anyone confirm or otherwise dismiss my suspicons?

I have met nurses working for Kaola nursing agency based in QLD. There hourly rate was quiet a bit higher when compared to other agencies.

Hi, as far as accommodation goes try looking online at the Advertiser News paper. To give you a very rough idea, you will be looking at a minimum of $250 a week, and rising from this. You might want to start with shared accommodation which normally means that you get furniture in with the deal, say at 120-150 a week. Good luck Andrew :)

Hi there, in Australia nurses wages are governed by the state award for nurses according to which state you work in. A post grad qualification allowance is paid for speciatly nurses eg, ICU, MHN etc. However to find a job paying over 100 a year for nurses will be quiet difficult. As a rough guide you pay rate in $A dollars will be somewhere between 50-80.000, a qualification allowance will very to state to state 2-5%. Genreally speaking nurses are paid the same rate of pay whether you are working in ICU, ED, Cardiac, MH or just a medical ward! With the exception of the post graduate qualification allowance that I mentioned. I hope this does not put you off coming to Australia as it is a great country to live and work in! Nursing agency will pay more so you might want to check out a few different agencies online. Good Luck.

Thanks for the feed back. I have just gone online to look at the so called benefits package by the QLD government for nurses going remote. The financial benefits on offer are $3000 for the first year of service, $9000 for the second year and $6000 for the third year. A quick calculation at a tax rate at .38 cents per dollar will give you $2860, $5580, $3720 respectively after tax. In each instance your out of pocket expenses of going remote will be far in excess of the benefits on offer by the QLD health department. There are other benefits on offer http:/www.health.qld.gov.au/nursing/rural_remote.asp I have not viewed the other states benefits package, but you can easily access this information on line and make the calculations and see if the benefits offset the costs of going remote? While we are discussing remote area nursing. I guess I should touch on health, fruit and vegatables, are limited and expensive in most locations. Recreational activities are limited or non existent. Transport is an issue as well, most locations will not provide a vehicle for nurses to use on their days off, so you may find your self stuck and find yourself walking in the mid day sun! Personal security. Most, but not all remote area nursing posts will not have security on staff! I guess one way to think about remote area nursing and the real cost of health care in the country is to think that by going remote you will be subsidising the real cost of health care in the country. Look at it as a donation of your money and time to the community. However, country placements do not have to be like this! There are somethings that can't be changed but equally there are others that can be changed. Certainly your remmuneration is one. Three words for you are, negotiate, negotiate and negotiate. People are being well paid for working in the country and you should be one of them. Good luck, I hope this helps.

Hi All, some considerations to accepting a remote area nursing contract. The cost of living, food, internet, phone and alcohol is super expensive. Everything else is just very very expensive. Go remote and it will cost you. What I would recommend is to negotiate a seperate weekly living expense, have this paid into your bank account from your employer, $30 a day no less and certainly more $40-50 a day on top of your salarly. Have this paid directly into your account as a tax free componet seperate to your salary. I hear you say our agency or employer does not do this! Well it is simple they do not do this because nurses do not demand it! If they do not play the game go else where, stay working in the city and forget the remote locations and just watch them start to offer the insentives. other professins would just laugh at the thought of going remote without adequate compensation. Another tip to remote area nursing, only ever sign on for a short contract two weeks three at the most. You can almost always extend a contract if you really like it! If you are taking a contract interstate, never pay for your nursing registration, if the hospital or health care facility needs a nurse from interstate to take a contrat it is up to that organsistion to pay for your registration not you, it is there cost not yours. If they are not prepared to pay. Don't go!

Pretty nerve racking stuff, real patients and not just dummies. Apart from all of the clinical opportunities in your placement I think picking up on time management if you can will be really helpful and ask plenty of qestions, as the saying goes, the only dumb question is the one that you did not ask. Another golden opportunity with your clinical rotations is to find out both good and bad areas of nursing to work in. Ask the nurses what they think of their ward and their staffing levels as well the shift rotations they work. All knowledge is good and will certainly help you with your future career. I have a few post on this site that may be worth having a look at and some interesting links. Good Luck

That sounds great, and only 8 months at Uni. Good to see that the Victorian nurses got a pay rise but what a struggle

Good point there is more to life then just nursing, good to find out what people do for fun and or relaxation and retirement does sound like the go but I have got a way to go yet. To relax I go bike riding (peddle power) or hang out at the gym or take my dog to the cafe to see the girls, she that is my dog is a huge hit at the cafe.

It is quiet interesting following the industrial termoil in Vic and see the inner workings of the black hearted Brumby government in all its glory, desperately trying to open beds and dismiss the nurses pay claim. There are so many different course in nursing which you can enroll in building your qualifications and service to the community, all of which will cost you money and time, for what reward I ask? Good luck with your Uni next year. It is is nice to be in a job that you are respected valued and rewarded appropriately for you skills, that's why so many nurses like yourself are looking outside of public or private health for job satisfaction.

It was interesting to See Mr Rudd's grab at votes with his initiative to fix the nursing crisis with attracting nurses who have left the work force with a meager $3000 on returning to work in public health and a further $3000 after 18 months. I say good luck to Mr Rudd, because he is going to need it if he thinks this initiative will even touch the ever widening nursing void. There are plenty of nurses out there like myself who earn good money, out side of public or private health. Maybe Mr Rudd is hoping to intice his mother back to the nursing workforce? I know that he will not get me back into a hospital. Once again there is a real opportunity to address public health, and the labour issues already mentioned in various blogs, but once again we see how the government really undervalues nurses. Just keep a close eye on what is happening in Victoria with nurses having to take industrial action for their profession. We have a labor government in each state, but some how nursing industrial issues and public health would be the same with a coalition government at state level I feel.

Victorian Nurses face heavy fines if they take industrial action over a long and bitter pay dispute with the Brumby State government. Follow the link for the full story: http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Vic-nurses-face-fines-if-they-stop-work/2007/10/04/1191091256998.html I am a W.A nurse and offer my support to my victorian collegues who I understand are the lowest paid nurses in Australia. Nurses if you can not take protected industrial action you should consider the blue flu!! For example, night shift nurses call in sick on a ward or two, and strategically time this before a theater list to have the maximum impact. What inconvenience or short time pain to the public through any industrial action will result in long time gain and better patient outcome . Health care in Victoria faces a huge risk if the Brumby government does not address the nurses EBA equitably.

The W.A state government is tackling Western Australia's chronic teacher shortage, by offering first year graduates up to $70,000 a year consisting of a base salary of $50,000. This reminds me of a nursing student I met afew years ago in my local fruit and veg store serving behind the counter. We got to chatting and I found out that she was in her first year of nursing, well that was it, this was like waving a red flag to a bull. To cut a long stort, I gave this girl some timely career advice She is now in her 4th year of teaching and on her way to starting on $50,000 VS $41,000 as a graduate nurse. The Western Australian News carried the pay rise story on it front page: "The public school system has to be competitive against other job opportunities outside of teaching and this is an important step toward achieving that End. This is part of out efforts to raise the status of the profession and raise the appeal of teaching. The fact of the matter is we are in the market place for new graduates from interstate and W.A and we have to look at what we have to do to make teaching attrative" This raises the question of what makes nursing attrative, is it the low pay that makes nursing attrative to a school leavers, or is it the rotational shift work, or the hazardous working environment that makes nursing an attrative career choice ? The government does not seem to realise that nursing needs to be a competive opption for school leavers. I wonder if we will see any of our State government apply the same recruitment and retention stradegy to nursing as W.A has applied to the chronic teacher shortage. W.A is currently negotiating the public hospital nurses EBA, so far the state government has effectively ignored our log of claims and have offered W.A nurses a meager pay rise over 2 years. With attitudes like this, nursing will remain a very unattractive prospective career choice. I predict the Chronic shortage of Nurses will continue unabated and that we will see more tax payer funded holiday recruitment trips of state officials for nursing recruitment.

Hi 2B and others, you may be interested to hear what the State Government of W.A is doing to tackle the shortage of teachers. It is offering first year graduates up to $70,000 a year, consisting of a base salary of $50,000 a year. Great News for teachers of W.A and they have not even started to negoitate their EBA, that comes later on in the year. Read my blog on the main message board for more details. Meanwhile it is the same old hype for nurses higly valued and poorly paid, let the discounts continue.....

I agree we certainly see a cross section of the community, the good, the bad and the very, very ugly! Nurses are perceived to be soft targets for offenders. There is little to no consequence for the offender if a nurse is assaulted. Nurses and health care facilites need to come down hard on the offenders. This includes criminal and civil action taken with the support of the employer. The nurse should also take out a restraining order against the assailant as well. Without consequence for the offender there can be no change to their behaviour and the cycle will continue. My thoughts are with that poor nurse as well.

Thought that you may be interested in this article I found at Perth Now, on the internet. I am a Psych nurse and no longer work in the specialty, and yes I have been assaulted at work. Have you ever been assaulted at work? Jim Kelly September 18, 2007 01:00pm A PSYCHIATRIC outpatient has been remanded in custody after a nurse was attacked with a screwdriver in Perth. Manuel Joseph Francisco, 41, appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court today charged with attempted murder. He allegedly stabbed the nurse eight times in the face, neck and head as she was walking through a mental health clinic car park in East Perth yesterday. Francisco was remanded in custody and to reappear in the same court on September 25.

I am sure there are other industries with difficult industrial issues to face as well, but lets focuss on nursing. It is a fact that there is a chronic shortage of nurses. The nursing students who do graduate are not staying in the profession, many are either leaving for other jobs, or studying to get out of nursing, or are at least considering it. As you will find out once you graduate nursing is such a highly regulated profession. What I mean by this is that the free market powers of demand and supply do not apply to nursing, nurses remmuneration is regulated by the governing nurses award. Once you go through a negotiation process with the government you will know what I mean. The nurses award is in place to keep the nurses wages well below true market value, inturn private hospitals rely on the government negotiators to keep their wage bill low and profits high. All the federal and or state governments need to do, to address the nursing shortage and stop the exodus from the profession is make nursing an attractive career choice. It is not that hard, allow market forces to determine the value of nurses. 95% of RN's are L1 and once you reach your max in years normally 9 your wages stop increasing. More career opportunites are required and friendlier family working conditions. Penalty rates need to be increased, 50% loading for Saturdays and 75% for Sundays in not enough, 20% loading for night shift and rapid rotation onto nights, is it any wonder that nurses are leaving and potential students are turned away and are just not interested in commiting to a career that has no valued in the community. When I talk about value I am not talking about appreciation of patients or families that you are caring for I am referring to value reflected by society in terms of the perceived value of a nurses determined by their remmuneration and working conditions for the nursing profession. By the way, good luck with your chosen profession. Regards Braggy

Ok, Clinical based practice, from my understanding you were fired for a perceived drug error, the medical team did not find the drug interaction problematic, therefore leave your CV as is and consider unfair dismissal, take legal action for being fired! This is only a suggestion, another option is to point out to future employers that the Nurse Manager had issues, not of your making and produce the clinical evidence to support this ie "what Drug error"!. Good Luck

I was just wondering who would recommend nursing as a career choice? I have certainly given a few home truths about the profession of nursing. To name but a few; Hazardous work environment The joys of shift work! Highly regulated profession Poor career opportunities Poor pay! It is interesting if you look at the nursing profession and consider the direct cost of nursing to nurses. Poor health, weight gain, poor diet. Increasing assaults against nurses to name but a few. One thing I can say about Howard and his idea about bringing nursing back to hospital based training is that you will have a high drop out rate from this type of training. Nursing students will have increased exposure to nursing and the reality of being a nurse. With University based education undergraduate nurses are not fully exposed to nursing for 3 years at least, once they have graduated. Exposing nursing students to the joys of our profession in the first year, lets see what the drop out rate will be ?Personally I do not think that Howard will be re-elected anyway and we will not have to worry about brining back hospital based training. What do you think, would you or have you recommended nursing as a career choice?

:welcome:Hi, I have just read your post and it is certainly heartening to read the professional support that you have for your the Nursing profession. I have been to the Phillipines and have fond memories of your country and the people in it. There certainly is a shortage of nurses in most countries, certainly in Australia we have a shortage of Nurses. I can understand why so many of your collegues would choose to leave the phillipines because of poverty. I really do not know how you would address this, discussing the shortage with local officials, raising the shortage with the government. You may have already tried this, but good luck. For those nurses who are planning on working abroad, I think you should consider Australia.

Nursing is very cut throat and unforgiving. A caring profession we are told! Caring for who the patient but not each other it would seem at times. Bit of a tricky situation you have got your self into. A suggestion would be to delete the hospital that you were fired from immediately from your CV. Secondly make sure you have got reliable referees. Is moving to another city an option? How much do you enjoy your career? shift work? Lousy pay, hazardous work environment! Is a career change an option? Working holiday, agency work across America, or Canada or England or Ausltralia. Sounds like some one has tried to give you a very negative energy gift, tell them thank you but no thankyou. Best bet is to stay positive be creative and look at all your options. Good Luck

What can I say such a big country so many great locations. I have been all over Australia and have worked in quiet a lot of locations from the country to the city in hospitals nursing posts and mine sites. If I was going to make a choice about what location and had limmited time. I would consider Perth, Darwin and or Melbourne. I would rule sydney out as it is too expensive and congested and the public transport system is a bit doggy. Melbourne, was voted as the second most popular city to live in, interestingly Toronto got first and Perth got thrid place. Melbourne, again is a big city lots of night life, cafe restuarants, shopping, museums, art gallaries etc etc, but the weather is lousy. So that leaves us to Perth and Darwin out my choices. Perth has fantastic beaches, good night life and cafes, Perth is a beautiful city on the Swan river, easy to get around, good public transport, and nurses get paid more in W.A then in Victoria! Darwin may be really worth considering, it is a very laid back city, and you just may get a better taste of Australia, certainly you will have a higher percentage of Aboriginal patients to look after, tourism is brilliant lots of great opportunities to go out to places like Kakadu national park etc. Back packers haven, lots of young people. There are plently of nursing agencies that all pay different rates and have various benefits so check out a few and have a fantastic time, once you make it over. You should find Australians very friendly and laid back. Have agreat time, and you never never know,:welcome: if you nver never go . Cheers Andrew

Consider this for a moment. Western Australian MPs have been given a 4.5% pay rise, by the Salaries and Allowances Tribunal,giving backbenchers an increase of $5000 to $123,780 and the Premier an increase of $12000 to $287,170 a year. Western Australian Nurses are negotiating their EBA "Enterprise Bargain Agreement. I use the word negotiate because I honestly do not know what nurses have got to negotiate with? If W.A nurses on $56000 (L1 Y9) were to gain an annual increase to their wages of $5000, they would need an percentage increase of 10%, and if nurse gained a $12000 increase to their wages, an increase of 22% would be required. The state government has offered nurses a 12.5% EBA over 3 years. Giving nurses an annual increase of $2352, if nurse were to equate this offer and apply it to a backbenchers salary on a percentage basis, the back bencher would have received an increase of 1.9% and the premier's pay packet would have been boosted by only .8% to gain respective increase under $2500 as is being offered to nurses. The cost of living is the same to nurses as it is to the government, so if the Labor government believes this is a fair offer, all future decisions made by the state and salaries and Allowances Tribunal should be based on the value of pay offers made by the goverment to the essential services of that State, 4.5% is a huge increase for the government when you consider what is being offered to Nurses. To all nurses out there, your EBA's is how the goverment and private health controls your wages, maintaining your wages as low as possible. We need to negotiate outside of our EBA's if we are ever going to recieve a professional wage for our profession.:angryfire

Hi, agency nursing does offer you a lot of variety and choice and normally the rate of pay is higher as well. You couldf apply directly to a hospital only you will not know what it is like until you have started working there. Will you get all of the lousy shifts, being put onto nights, working every weekend and public holiday there is, the answer is probably yes. I worked in the UK for a shot while, I was originally planning on working for 12 months but after 2week at Ashford outside of London, having to dish up the peas and carrots for patients and being charged for sub standard nursing accommodation, I quit and went traveling which I thought was a very good idea. The cost of living in Australia is a lot lower then the UK, our wages therefore go a lot further. I think we have more autonomy nursing in Australia and the weather here, what can I say apart from come on over and find out for yourself. Always have a contigency plan in place just in case. Also there are pleny of agency paying varying rates so have a look around. Good Luck