Q about NZ Hospitals from an OZ nurse!

[Seawitch]

Hi, both my husband and I are Registered Nurses in Australia. I work in Emergency and I am currently working on my Masters, My husband works in Intensive Care - and will hold a Graduate certificate in ICU nursing before we immigrate to NZ.

I realise it's all very subjective, but if you're a nurse, do you like where you work??

Do you get paid more in NZ if you have more qualifications (as a nurse) than the standard Bachelor of Nursing???

I Oz we get paid more if we have completed post grad study. Is it the same in NZ?

At the moment we are looking to move to Auckland, but we're open to anywhere on the North Island....

Thanksxx

[scarah]

As a Vic trained nurse who moved to NSW... Vic nurses do not know what they wish for.

I would seriously take a pay cut here to have the Victorian conditions, while the NSW base rate seems higher it's penalites are totally different like

1) casual loading is 10% not 25%

2) shift penalities are lost when weekend penalities are effective ie. you can only be paid night shift penalty OR Sunday penalty not both!

3) Casual loading is lost when weekend or PH rates are payable

4) In-Charge of the ward gets a measly $20 per shift penalty instead of a different pay rate

Plus the conditions and moral here are horrendous. While ratios have just been won here, they currently have many more ENs /Div2s for each RN on the ward, they also use AINs or PCAs in acute care. I have seen 32 bed wards on afternoon shift with only 2 RNs on. They regularly short shift casuals and agency in the public system meaning 6 hour shifts for these workers (but 8 hours worth of work) and then leaves the ward short for the overlap between shifts.

Also ratios might have been won here but they aren't necessarily the same as Vic, for instance having the supernumery in-charge won't exist on afternoon shift.

Also how's this - acute care wards with manual winding beds! I'd never seen that in Vic. Also no emerg buzzers on the wall, no bed side meds (yup shared med trolley for the ward so only one nurse can do meds at a time), no ensuite bathrooms in wards...

Seriously having seen both, the Vic system rocks!

[ceridwyn]

Yeah, I forgot about all that..its a little behind isn't. The night shifts were a cracker....they did not pay sunday allowance because the majority of the night was in a weekday! well thats what was happening in 1998-2000.