Oversea Nurses working in Australia
The Department of Health was today releasing their annual nurses count and feedback in order to understand the current and future nursing and midwifery workforce. In their information they referred to numbers of the 2007 WA Nursing and Midwifery Labour Force Census and state that there were 30 000 plus nurses and midwives registered with the Nurses and Midwifery Board of WA.
They highlight that WA is experiencing a nursing shortage and that the demand is set to increase particularly due to the ageing nursing workforce.
It also demonstrated that in the permanent employed workforce nurses worked approximately 24 hours per week (100% equals 38 hours a week with 6 weeks annual leave/”paid holiday”) and that 25% of the WA nursing and midwifery workforce were trained overseas (Letter from the Department of Health, Oct. 08).
Introduction (Research proposal Marianne Rentsch, 2007)
In 2007 a newspaper headline “Western Australia faces skills crises for another 10 years” aptly captured the present and future concern about a nursing shortage (Banks, 2007). In this article, Banks, argued that given the current economic growth, chronic shortages of teachers and nurse are likely to continue until 2016. Further, he cites that the West Australian government predicts that at least 180 000 skilled workers will be needed within the next decade. The Mental Health Division at a recent Service Provider Forum in Perth stated that the Department of Health is attempting to recruit overseas nurses to fill the gaps and increasing demand for more nurses (Trish Sullivan, Personal Communication, September 7. 2007). The Department of Immigration and Citizenship identify on their immigration web-page, nurses and doctors as the most needed professionals and provides a faster visa processing procedure for potential migrants in these categories. A shortfall of 40 000 nurses is projected by 2010 (Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), 2002 cited by Jeon & Chenoweth, 2007, p. 21). Jeon and Chenoweth (2007, p. 17) further present unpublished data (DIMIA, 2004) that up to 30% of the Australian nursing workforce was born overseas and about 7.4% of them were from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Importantly, overseas trained nurses are considered “valuable assets” within the labour market and are regarded as highly motivated and educated (Hawthorn, 2001, cited in Omeri, 2006, p. 56). Omeri, (2006) further adds that the majority of overseas nurses pass seamlessly into employment, with the exception of non English speaking background nurses. But, culturally and linguistically diverse nurses are reported to experience significant difficulties in their transition to the new work environment (Jackson, 1996; Omeri & Atkins, 2002) or even become lost to the workforce. Hence, it is important to explore and understand the phenomena of lived experience of the so called culturally linguistically diverse (CALD) or non-English speaking background (NESB) nurses so that awareness and support can be established to enable them to contribute their unique competences within the Australian nursing work force. (The terms culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and non English speaking background (NESB) are used to describe nurses who are working in a foreign country where a language other than their mother tongue is dominant).
