Willis made the promise on Wednesday in an RNZ political panel appearance — under pressure over nursing workforce numbers.
She said 2300 nurses were being actively recruited by Te Whatu Ora-Health NZ (HNZ) and placed in roles around the country. They would be in hospitals by Christmas, Willis promised.
HNZ told Kaitiaki that the 2300 recruitment number was announced in August and while 322 roles had been accepted, the number, with new vacancies, was still 2278. About 1800 would be new graduates from ACE matches, promised for the current financial year.
‘They would have to have an HR team with superpowers to onboard that many graduates by Christmas.’
The next round of matches won’t be announced till the end of the year — leaving only a few weeks for graduates to accept and then be thrown into hospital wards to make the Christmas deadline.
New registered nurse (RN) Bianca Grimmer said it varied but generally took at least two months from being matched through ACE with a new graduate job to hitting the hospital floor.
Most got their job offers at the end of November and started in mid-late January the following year, said Grimmer, a former NZNO student leader.
“They would have to have an HR [human resources] team with superpowers to onboard that many graduates by Christmas.”
Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa-NZNO president Anne Daniels said she did not believe it was possible to hire 2300 nurses by Christmas.
“It’s bullsh*t, it’s totally impossible, they’re dreaming,” she told Kaitiaki.
“Having all those nurses in by Christmas is just a total impossibility. And every nurse everywhere will know that – the actual process is a huge one.”
A former charge nurse, Daniels said she knew recruitment took six weeks “at a minimum” if the charge nurse was making decisions – and even longer, if regional sign-off was needed.
“Paperwork, interviews, competency assessments and all that – it takes weeks and weeks.”
Hiring enough experienced, senior and skilled nurses, alongside new graduates, was also essential for safely staffed hospitals: “It’s not just about numbers,” Daniels said.
“As much as I would like to see it happen, it’s impossible,” she said. “This is just a desperate election promise.”
No timeline was given for when the roles would be filled.
It comes as NZNO members across the country have raised concerns about frozen hiring and understaffed wards.
Despite claims by Health Minister Simeon Brown that there were 2100 new nurses added since the Government took power, the workforce actually only grew by 54 FTE in the past two years.
He has been contacted by Kaitiaki for comment on Willis’ claim.
Meanwhile, 104 NZNO members working in the Tauranga Hospital emergency department (ED) have written a letter to HNZ chief executive Dale Bramley declaring a state of emergency in the department.
The letter comes after NZNO ED workers in Gisborne Hospital went on a health and safety strike over short-staffing there.
NZNO’s college of emergency nurses have spoken of the pressures ED are under, across the country.
How many will be hired?
HNZ national chief nurse Nadine Gray said the 2300 referenced by Willis was from August 14. From that date to September 11, 322 nurses had accepted roles with HNZ.
HNZ was currently recruiting to 2278 nursing roles across the country: part of a constantly changing recruitment number as roles were filled and advertised.
The number included a previously-announced commitment of 1800 roles for RN and enrolled nurse graduates across the current financial year (ending in 2027), Gray said.
Labour’s health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said the promise was an “incredibly deceptive use of numbers” and did not refer to new nurses – simply replacing those who had left after a two-year hiring freeze.
“It may well be that there need to be that many nurses that need to hired in order to for the health system to stand still. But the Government has, for two years, now kept the number of nurses roughly fixed at the same level,” she told RNZ.
When she challenged the Minister of Health in Parliament on the figure, he “deliberately avoided committing to those being new nurses, over and above the current total number of nurses”.
Verrall said Labour was committed to growing the nursing workforce and employing all graduates – however, would not commit to paid placements for nursing students.
How many grads?
Gray said as of 10 September, 426 graduate nurse offers were accepted from the mid-year intake.
“We are preparing for the large end-of-year cohort of graduate nurses. To-date, 1935 completed applications have been received, the highest number of applicants received in six years. Of these, 1727 are new applications and 208 are re-applications from other intakes.”