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Stephenie Wardle usually works in hospitals across Adelaide and South Australia's rural and remote regions.
Key points:
- Some casual nurses across Australia have been forced to look for work elsewhere
- An Adelaide nurse says she has not worked in a month and cannot afford registration fees
- The SA nurses' union has called for registration fees to be waived
However, despite the coronavirus pandemic, the casual agency nurse has not had a job in almost a month.
"I've had nothing whatsoever, not even remote work. I've just been stuck at home," she said.
"I find it really frustrating, although I can understand why, because the healthcare system isn't getting the same input into the emergency departments.
"You're not getting car crashes or accidents … surgical and major departments [have shut down] so nurses like me don't get that work."
Ms Wardle is one of thousands of nurses to have found themselves out of a job in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, with many forced to consider leaving the industry just to pay the bills.
As elective surgery and non-essential hospital visits are scaled back, many casual nurses around Australia have lost their shifts and are now applying for Centrelink support or supermarket jobs.
"I've applied for jobs now that I would never have considered before — retail, packing for Coles and Woolworths," she said.
Photo:
The cancellation of elective surgeries has squeezed casual nurses' hours. (AAP: David Mariuz)
Ms Wardle is employed casually through a nursing agency and she used to work full-time hours.
She said she loved being a nurse and wanted to help on the frontline.
But with no income, she said she could not afford her annual nursing registration fee of $175 which was due next month.
She said many nurses were in the same position, and without paying for the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) registration, would be unable to work.
"Other bills like keeping the house and being able to pay for your food are a lot more important," she said.
"Because if you're not getting work then why pay the registration?
"That's a requirement by law to have that registration and without that we can't work … it will mean there are less nurses out in the field."
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Union calls for registration fees to be waived
Ms Wardle hopes she will be eligible for financial support under the Federal Government's JobKeeper scheme but is not sure if or when she might receive a payment.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is calling for the registration fee to be waived for nurses in financial hardship.
SA branch secretary Elizabeth Dabars said if underemployed nurses let their registration lapse there would be fewer nursing staff available if the pandemic worsened.
"We believe AHPRA should provide waivers in the event of hardship to provide some relief to that important workforce," Associate Professor Dabars said.
"In the event that the COVID crisis increases in Australia we are going to need to call on their resources and expertise in a very rapid way, so we need to look after them now."
However, she said there was work that casual nurses could and should already be doing in hospitals to prepare for the peak of the pandemic.
"Bringing casual workers onboard now would enable some of that pre-planning, that preparation to occur and, in the event the situation worsens, to enable the important relief so people are not as fatigued as in other countries," Associate Professor Dabars said.
"They can be relieving permanent staff to allow permanent staff to upskill, they can and should be engaged in orientation and they should be engaged in scenarios and pre-planning to deal with the crisis."
More than 40,000 doctors, nurses, midwives and pharmacists who have recently retired or left the industry have been placed on the pandemic register so they can quickly return to work if required.
Anyone placed on that register is not required to pay AHPRA registration fees for the year.
Ms Wardle said she wanted similar support offered to casual nurses out of work.
"They've got 1,500 nurses who are there at the ready to help," she said.
"Why can't they use those nurses and put them into the system before taking those people out of retirement?"
The ABC has contacted AHPRA for a response.
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Topics: covid-19, diseases-and-disorders, health, federal---state-issues, federal-government, unions, community-and-society, work, government-and-politics, adelaide-5000, sa
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