July 12, 2022 7:00am by David Farrar

PM says migrant nurses may not want to be nurses

The Prime Minister is defending the Government’s residency rules for nurses suggesting if the barrier is too high “perhaps they don’t want to be a nurse in New Zealand”.
The healthcare sector is overwhelmed as staff shortages, COVID-19 and a particularly bad flu season all hit at once.
Nursing shortages are of particular concern after they were excluded from the same residency rules as GPs in the Government’s immigration reset.

So the PM is suggesting nurses who want to move to New Zealand may leave nursing if they get residency. What a bizarre contention.

We need nurses desperately. And the Government is making it hard for them to come and live here.

But I have a solution.

All the nurses who want to come and live and work in New Zealand should simply declare they are really DJs, who just do nursing as a side gig.