“Fifty three per cent of facilities surveyed in the Great Lakes area are looking for registered nurses immediately,” said HealthX director, Derek Irwin.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Barclay Gardens’ director of nursing, Vanessa Smith. “There’s always a shortage of RNs in aged care. We’re really stretched. All our shifts are covered by our regular staff at the moment but we could employ another RN.”
Director of nursing at Great Lakes Aged and Invalid Care Association, Doreen Swann said they were managing but need more RNs. They haven’t been able to obtain any RNs from their last two advertisements, she said. They didn’t receive a single reply.
In the Mid North Coast and Hunter regions the HealthX study found that 88.2 per cent require RNS immediately with a further 5.9 per cent requiring RNs in the next three months.
The survey, conducted across seven areas in rural NSW during June and July, is being used to evaluate the recruitment requirements and challenges faced by rural aged care facilities when it comes to recruiting registered nurses.
Almost three million Australians were aged 65 years or more in 2006, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 13 per cent of the total population. By 2036, numbers are expected to just about double with 24 per cent of the total population requiring aged care.
“We are well aware that the demand for RNs will only increase in the coming years due to our ageing population. In order to ease the staffing shortages, there needs to be a long term solution,” Mr Irwin said.
A number of challenges in recruiting RNs for aged care facilities were identified in the survey, such as geographic location, pay differences between registered nurses working in aged care in comparison to working at hospitals and experience required for working in this particular nursing sector which makes it difficult for new graduates to commence work in aged care.
The survey found graduate nurses have many areas to choose from and aged care is not an attractive option due to the workload and lower pay rates compared to health departments.
Some facilities also face challenges in the retention of nurses. Jobs can be lost due to mining, retirement or due to the heavy regulation, paperwork and documentation, surrounding the aged care sector.
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