Tuesday, 28 November 2023

Nursing students

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:12): (620) My adjournment matter for this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health. It is in relation to student nurses and clinical placements and the costs for these student nurses. There are many barriers for student nurses. I raised this issue some months ago. In fact there was an article in the Warrnambool Standard in May where I was citing the experience of a student nurse, Tori Parsons, who was doing her clinical placement in Geelong. She was talking about the enormous expense for her to be able to do her placement in Geelong. It was up to $4000. Student nurses have to pay for things like a national police check and an international police check, a working with children check, an NDIS screening check, immunisation serology compliance, annual influenza vaccinations, first aid certificates, CPR certification, mask fit testing and hand hygiene certification as some of the legislative requirements. For student nurses it is an enormous cost when you add up all of the costs that come with those checks.

We know from the budget papers that the government provided funding for an additional 200,000 ‍student placements. They have not got anywhere near that. They have got around 73 per cent, but they do not have those clinical placements. I am hearing from student nurses who are saying, ‘We’re not completing our training. We’re not completing our placements because we just can’t afford it.’ In the example I cited, Tori Parsons said that by the time she paid for petrol, accommodation and food, she was $4000 out of pocket. That is in addition to all of these compliance checks that student nurses have to provide.

I know that there are various others who are concerned about this. I have seen some communication from the union. They are obviously not making much headway with the government in relation to this, because it is still going on. They are not having much impact whatsoever. So the action I seek is for the government to provide support to address the barriers for student nurses in relation to completing their mandatory requirements for clinical placements, because we need more nurses in the system, not less. We need more, and we need these nurses to be supported, not just the government’s throwaway lines on what they are doing about their costs in relation to study. It is these issues that are having a real impact, a direct impact, and they are preventing nurses from being able to undertake their training. As I said, we need more nurses in the system, not less. 9500 left last year; over 7000 left the year before. That is over 16,000 nurses that left our health system in just two years.