A major provider of aged care in Otago, Presbyterian Support Otago (PSO), has called on the government to respond to the nurse shortage crisis which it says is threatening the aged care sector.

The PSO, a charitable organisation which provides aged residential care beds to more than 500 people in nine care homes across Otago, sent an open letter this week to key government ministers and local members of parliament, calling for immediate action.

The organisation has asked the government to alter immigration settings to grant fast track residency to overseas qualified nurses wishing to work in New Zealand; and increase funding so that pay parity can be achieved for nurses in the aged care sector. 

PSO chief executive officer Joanne Rowe said nurses who have remained in the aged care sector “are now under unsustainable strain, as they struggle to cover shifts and to provide quality health care to vulnerable older people”. 

“As a charitable organisation, we face an additional and critical challenge. Unlike the big  corporate providers, we cannot top up the wages of our nurses to bring their salaries into line with their DHB [district health board] counterparts.”

She said nurses in aged care settings are paid on average 20 per cent less than DHB nurses. 

The letter includes a personal account about working at the frontline of aged care nursing from a senior PSO nurse. 

“I am extremely tired, I am physically drained and emotionally spent. I am at burnout. I continue because to stop would place extra strain on an already broken system,” the nurse said.

New Zealand is fighting for nursing staff in a competitive environment and is not a country of first choice right now for overseas nurses, the PSO said. The organisation attributes this to the current immigration settings, which require nurses to come here on a two-year visa, rather than be granted immediate residency.

There are more than 4,000 registered nurses missing from New Zealand’s health workforce, in the wider context of a global shortage of nurses; and more than 1,000 aged care beds in New Zealand have closed due to a lack of nurses, the PSO said.

More beds will close if no new nurses are added to the workforce, the organisation said.