Nurses are burned out all around Australia.
They've been on the front lines of every part of the COVID-19 response in the two years since the epidemic began: testing, tracking, screening, isolating, vaccination, and treating the illness.
This does not account for the current non-COVID-related work, which has a growing backlog.
With little break and ever-increasing demand, nurses throughout the nation — in both public and private systems — told us they're feeling overworked.
Annie Butler, federal secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, said that the problem of burnout is certainly real.
The experience in private elderly care, particularly in Victoria following the second wave last year, was catastrophic.
According to Ms Butler, there is a lot of concern about the future.
Christine Duffield, President of the Australian College of Nursing, predicts that states will lose "substantial numbers" of nurses due to exhaustion.
They're exhausted. Putting on all of that equipment has been quite challenging, as has coping with several unpleasant circumstances and families who are unable to see their relatives.
Duffield believes we'll see nurses with wonderful talents, who might be recruited out into other sectors, but I think some nurses will decide it's simply been too stressful and will go on.
It's difficult to say.
Despite the epidemic, the number of registered nurses in Australia continues to rise year after year.
However, it is unknown if there will be enough to supply the ever-increasing demand. In addition, patient turnover has risen, hospital beds have been reduced, there is an aging population and chronic illness, and the COVID epidemic has added to the difficulties.
The most current supply and demand modelling in the nursing profession was completed in 2014 by the federal health body Health Workforce Australia (HWA), which was disbanded that same year.
Under the then-current circumstances, it estimated an overall deficit of 85,000 nurses by 2025 and 123,000 by 2030, as well as gaps in all sectors: acute, aged care, critical care, emergency, and mental health.
However, in a scenario that assumed improved nursing student retention, higher employment rates after graduation, and increased early-career retention, as well as slower future economic growth slowing provision of health services and thus demands for nurses, the shortfalls were reduced to 39,000 by 2025 and 45,000 by 2030.
Under such a scenario, the research anticipated that the total supply of nursing workers across all sectors would be 300,398 by 2025. Instead, the number of registered and enrolled nurses was 420,553 in June 2021, which was 40% more than forecasts for 2025.
The 2014 forecasting did not take into consideration unprecedented economic growth, a pandemic, or Australia's recent slump.
However, no modelling has been done on this since 2014, and the Department of Health states that "no more information relating to the [2014] report can be released."
According to a representative for the department, a fresh research began in September 2021 and is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2022.
A spokesman said that the research would use current data (from 2015 to 2020) to quantify Australia's nursing workforce and will include future scenario forecasts of workforce needs at the national, state, and territory levels.
On a larger scale, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported 333,700 total job openings for the August 2021 quarter, a 9.8 per cent decrease from May.
Vacancies in the "health care and social support" business surged from 8.2 per cent to 21.2 per cent between February 2020 and August 2021, bucking the overall trend.
Replacement/resignation and increasing workload were the top two causes for those openings across industries.
According to a 2020 study from the International Council of Nurses, 90% of national nurse organisations were somewhat or highly worried that the pandemic's demanding workloads, limited resources, burnout, and stress were leading more nurses to quit or wish to leave the profession.
Australia has one of the highest nurse-to-population ratios in the OECD, behind just Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Germany. In this ranking, "nurses" refer to all "practising" nurses who provide direct health care.
Healthcare systems in the United States and the United Kingdom are under tremendous pressure due to a personnel shortage, which the arduous expectations of COVID-19 have worsened.
The fourth wave of nurses has left their professions in the United States, whilst a UK government assessment has determined that National Healthcare Service (NHS) worker burnout is at an "emergency" level, threatening the service's viability.
The ICN proposes that one method to overcome the shortage gap is to expand the number of nursing students and ensure that those students can find meaningful work after graduation.
The number of nursing students graduating from university in Australia continues to rise. However, not every graduate goes on to work as a registered nurse.
According to the Department of Education, Skills, and Employment, 88.8 per cent of graduates from undergraduate-level nursing courses were employed four months following graduation in 2020.
In addition, 13% were working in non-professional level occupations as health and welfare support workers, which includes jobs like enrolled nurses, elderly and handicapped caregivers, and nursing support and personal care workers.
However, Professor Duffield believes that we cannot depend only on graduates to staff hospitals and supplement the workforce. She claims that we need more highly qualified and experienced nurses.
To do so, Professor Duffield advises students to explore for experience outside of hospitals rather than focusing only on graduate work in hospitals.
She said that Australia has an overabundance of fresh graduates. However, they don't go where they're needed. They all want to work at a huge teaching hospital in a big city, in an urban region, and our shortfall is in rural and remote places.
According to 2019 Health Workforce statistics, nurses are most required in tiny rural areas with the fewest full-time equivalent registered nurses per 100,000 inhabitants.
Australia has long depended heavily on foreign nurses.
Only Switzerland and New Zealand were more dependent on foreign-trained employees among the OECD nations, according to statistics gathered between 2017 and 2018.
Since 2014, the number of employed registered nurses born abroad has climbed by 32%.
The Philippines, India, and the United Kingdom were the top three contributors of nurses born abroad.
According to a study by a parliamentary committee on migration, almost 500,000 temporary migrants have departed Australia since the borders closed in March 2020.
However, with the border reopened, there are requests for the government to expedite permits for foreign nurses.
As part of a proposal to alleviate the healthcare staffing issue, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has proposed approving 2,000 international nurses and physicians for employment in Australia.
However, the idea has not been formally published, and the Health Department was unable to offer the ABC with any details on how the number of 2,000 was arrived at or how they may be divided across professions.
A recent assessment of all 194 Intensive Care Units in Australia indicated that there are 195 fewer accessible ICU beds than there were in 2020.
There were 2,183 staffed ICU beds available at the time of the study, which was released in October of this year.
There were 2,378 fully staffed ICU beds in March 2020, designed and equipped to ICU standards, with a maximum surge capacity of 4,258 extra beds in the event of a calamity.
Whilst available beds decreased across all states and territories, the fall was most pronounced in rural, regional, and private ICUs.
According to the report, fewer than half of the possible new physical ICU beds could be opened with existing available staff levels whilst preserving pre-pandemic models of care.
According to the survey results, the decline in available beds was caused by a shortage of personnel, notably registered nurses. This was also the aspect that was most likely to restrict the ability of ICUs to expand in response to the pandemic.
Certainly not from the federal government.
All eight state and territory health ministers sought for "urgent extra Commonwealth funds" ahead of border reopening in a joint letter to federal Health Minister Greg Hunt in September.
According to the letter, states and territories are under unremitting pressure as a result of the present COVID-19 obligations and the pre-existing trend of increasing hospital activity.
However, the administration has said unequivocally that it would not increase hospital financing.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has consistently ruled it out, claiming that the states have had a lot of time to prepare for this.
