Free university degrees for budding nurses in Victoria could exacerbate nationwide workforce shortages and pit states against each other, unions and peak bodies have warned.
The Victorian government on Sunday announced plans to pay the entire HECS debt of more than 10,000 nursing and midwifery graduates. Under the $270m scheme, all new domestic students enrolling in undergraduate nursing and midwifery courses in 2023 and 2024 will receive up to $16,500.
Students will receive $9,000 over their three years of study, but the rest would be paid off if they work in Victorian public health services for two years
The New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association’s general secretary, Shaye Candish, said a state-based scheme could have a “detrimental impact”, and there should instead be a national initiative.
“We’re already seeing about 3,000 or more nurses and midwives leave to work interstate, creating disparity with wages and working conditions already between states,” Candish said ahead of a strike by the union’s members on Thursday.
“We are really supportive of this type of initiative – but we’re concerned it will have a detrimental effect on NSW and we will see people go and take advantage of those types of programs.”
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation’s federal secretary, Annie Butler, said the Victorian scheme “could well” see aspiring nurses leave their home states.
“There is a risk that this could see greater drift from New South Wales,” she said.
“But let’s hope it does encourage that state’s government to try and support their nurses, grow and support their nursing workforce, in much better ways.”
Butler said pay and conditions needed to improve to attract and retain nurses.
“It doesn’t matter how many we train if we don’t keep them,” she said.
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union’s secretary, Beth Mohle, said it had proposed the waiving of university and Tafe fees to the health and aged care roundtable discussion ahead of the federal jobs and skills summit.
“This would probably assist with workforce growth and the retention of students and future nurses and midwives who might consider moving, studying and working interstate,” Mohle said.
Queensland’s Department of Health said it was seeking an additional 770 graduate nurses and midwives a year, with about $30m committed to attract them.
While the Victorian scheme is only available for nursing and midwifery graduates, there was scope for it to be adopted by other states and include teaching students, the NSW Teachers Federation president, Angelo Gavrielatos, said.
But he said that would not be a magic bullet to address teacher shortages and “uncompetitive salaries and unsustainable workloads that have brought us to this point” needed to be addressed.
The NSW education minister, Sarah Mitchell, said most of the state’s teaching scholarships “already completely offset the cost of a teaching degree, and I am committed to ensuring we increase the uptake of these scholarships”.
The scheme is being pushed as a solution to Victoria’s overburdened public hospitals, but the Australian Private Hospitals Association chief executive, Michael Roff, said the move could force the closure of private sector services.
“Victoria’s public hospitals are already groaning under the strain of Covid-19, influenza and massive elective surgery backlogs,” he said.
“They are currently relying on the private sector to help them manage all of this. If the private sector loses hospitals, the pressure on the public system only increases.”
The policy would start a bidding war between states and territories for a workforce that wasn’t there, Roff said.
The Australian Primary Health Care Nurses Association said the policy risks worsening nurse shortages in aged care and in general practice, and wanted the Andrews government to tweak it.
Addressing the National Press Club on Monday, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, welcomed the move, but would not commit to a federal waiving of HECS debts for exisiting nurses.
