20k nurses needed in care homes in Australia

Some 20,000 potential job openings for the elderly care sector in Australia may await Filipinos wishing to work as healthcare providers abroad.

However, the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) said the elderly care sector may need an injection of almost $500 million to close the wages gap and attract at least 20,000 nursing staff.

“The shortage of aged care nursing staff is already having a real impact, with independent analysis showing… nursing home residents are on average receiving just 22 minutes of care from a nurse each day,” ANF federal secretary Lee Thomas said in an article on the Nursing Careers Allied Health website.

“But one of the main reasons we can’t recruit and then retain aged care nurses is because of the significant wages gap experienced by aged care nursing staff across the country,” she said.

That is why the ANF is pushing for urgent funding for more nursing staff to address critical workforce issues, Thomas said.

She noted that aged care nurses are paid between $168 and $390 on average a week than nurses working in public hospitals.

Thomas pointed out that the aged care workforce needs to be tripled to cope with the demands of the nation’s ageing population. “Fixing aged care can’t wait — it has to happen now,” she said. — JE, GMA News