A Pacific labor plan has transformed the lives of Kiribati families, but the loss of nurses has had a significant impact on the country's hospitals.
Every night, whilst sitting in her room in the isolated Queensland hamlet of Doomadgee, Bwerere Sandy Tebau contacts her husband and daughter in Tarawa, Kiribati's capital.
There isn't a sea! Sandy explains the contrast between her new habitat in Australia's red desert and her island birthplace in the middle Pacific. There's only a lake, and there are crocodiles in it!
Sandy is one of three Kiribati nurses who have been brought in to work at an elderly care home in Doomadgee, a village of roughly 1,500 people located 85 kilometers from the Northern Territory border.
Her job is part of the Pacific Labour Scheme (PLS), a program that allows inhabitants from ten Pacific Island countries and Timor-Leste to work for authorised Australian businesses in industries including meat processing, tourism, and elderly care. The initiative intends to address rural Australia's labor shortages.
Securing a spot in the program may be life-changing for Pacific families, particularly in remote and thinly populated island republics like Kiribati.
Sandy said that she is going to save some money to bring home.
Sandy is loving her employment at Ngooderi House after just a few weeks.
Previous participants have returned to Kiribati with enough money to construct durable concrete houses, fix wells, purchase automobiles, and pay for their children's education.
With so much to offer in Australia, many candidates are hoping for opportunities to remain. Back in Kiribati, however, the departure of the nurses to Australia is having a significant effect on the country's healthcare system.
Albert O'Connor has gotten an all-too-familiar phone call on a hot Tarawa night. A patient has arrived at the hospital and is being prepared for an emergency C-section by O'Connor's colleagues. Despite having just a few hours of sleep, hospital transport is on its way to take him back to work at Tungaru central hospital, the country's biggest health facility.
Staff across all wards are working more double shifts. O'Connor, a nurse who trained with Sand, said. There is no one to take our position, and they are unable to help other wards with shortages.
High birth rates and growing cases of noncommunicable illnesses strain limited resources and force understaffed nurses to work long hours... We don't always spend enough time with our family.
Albert's obstetric ward colleague, Mereua Eete, added, with fewer personnel and owing to the number of patients in the obstetric ward, sometimes on our day off we are not off - we still have to work extra.
The hospital has struggled to meet the community's rising demands. According to the ministry of health and medical services sources, the hospital is often overcrowded, despite having just 85 beds, including a 10-bed prenatal care section located in a tent. Kiribati has a population of around 120,000 people.
Furthermore, as compared to their peers outside the nation, Kiribati nurses are underpaid. In Kiribati, the average biweekly pay for nurses varies between A$350 and A$500. As a consequence, registered nurses with skills and training are looking for better-paying and less-demanding employment in Australia's aged-care market.
Sandy and the 15 other nurses arrived in Australia late last month, bringing the total number of Kiribati nurses hired in Australia via the PLS to 25.
The nurses' departure has also come at a particularly poor time for Kiribati, which is dealing with a whooping cough epidemic and worries that Covid would arrive – the nation has so far been Covid-free – as it prepares to open its borders in January.
Concerns about brain drain from the nation were overdone, according to the ministry of employment and human resources, since contracts under PLS were set at three years and did not offer avenues to permanent residence.
The ministry stated in a statement that at this time, there is minimal fear about brain drain since these nurses will not remain in Australia indefinitely and will return [to Kiribati] at the conclusion of their contract.
Whilst the job provides many prospects, Sandy is unlikely to remain longer than her posting if it means being apart from her husband and children. The work is rewarding, but it is a demanding commitment, particularly during a pandemic that has made travel between Kiribati and Australia practically impossible.
Sandy describes Doomadgee as a tiny town. There isn't much to do, so she just goes to work, goes grocery shopping, and spends leisure time in my room contacting her husband and daughter. She said that she genuinely miss them.
