Health NZ to hire 380 extra staff, 'majority' will be nurses
Health New Zealand has announced the recruitment of 380 additional staff, primarily nurses, to address staffing shortages following a difficult winter. The organization is also planning to transition toward patient-to-staff ratios by 2027 to improve care quality.
Why it matters
This move addresses critical capacity issues in the public health system, which has been under significant strain from high demand.
Health NZ says it will hire 380 extra nurses, midwives and health care assistants as part of its annual review of staffing.
That was just over one percent of the total Health NZ nursing workforce.
Chief nurse Nadine Gray said it would put the staff in the districts where they were most needed after a difficult winter.
She told a press conference in Auckland the "majority" were nurses, but did not know the exact percentage.
Each year Health NZ used a calculation known as Care Capacity Demand Management (CCDM) to estimate how many staff it needed annually, and the 380 came from that, she said.
The full-time equivalent (FTE) roles will be spread across the regions as follows:
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