Registered nurse positions go unfilled at Junee hospital

Councillor Martin Holmes, who sits on Junee’s Local Health Advisory Committee, said the main problem was attracting medical professionals to smaller towns. 

“The problem is, to get registered nurses to come to Junee, they have to hold a number of qualifications that they can’t get at a country hospital,” Cr Holmes said.

“So they have to go to a major hospital to complete their training, but, once they move to a bigger town or city, it’s a lot harder to get them to come back and work.” 

Cr Holmes said some of Junee nursing staff had expressed concerns over what the shortage of registered nurse applicants meant for them.

“Say you’ve got annual leave, but the hospital’s got no staff to fill in for you, then there’s pressure on the manager to try to fill those gaps – it's a flow on effect,” he said.

“It’s a high-stress job they’re in, and you need to have your breaks and you need a holiday to recharge your batteries.” 

However, the Murrumbidgee Local Health District’s manager for the Cootamundra cluster Kerry Lindeman reassured The Junee Southern Cross that the two unfilled registered nurse positions were having no negative impacts on staff or patients.

“We’re using the rural local agency program to contract in agency nurses to allow registered nurses to have their annual leave, so there have been nurses on leave during that time,” Ms Lindeman said.

“So there's no deficit and no risk to patient care at all.” 

Cr Holmes said it was time to start looking at the problem from a different angle.

“The Temora community held a careers expo specifically aimed at the medical profession, and, according to one of the people at the meeting, they were able to get two senior staff to move down from the city,” he said.

“What if we did something similar? Some professionals might think ‘this town isn’t so bad’ and decide to have a tree change.”