swapped their uniforms for T-shirts<\/a> to expose \u201cthe need for better and safer staffing\u201d.<\/p>\nA letter from Taup\u014d Hospital district nursing staff to Health NZ Lakes operations group director Alan Wilson in July said staff were feeling \u201coverwhelmed with workloads\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is not enough staff to support them taking the time off that they need to support their health and family commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said Taup\u014d did not have a team lead, administration support or a healthcare assistant, which \u201cwe believe could go some way to lessening the issues that this service is experiencing presently and has done for a number of years\u201d.<\/p>\n
Recruitment underway for healthcare assistant <\/p>\n
Wilson said Health NZ acknowledged the concerns and it had been working with Taup\u014d nurses to strengthen local support.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaup\u014d operates at a smaller scale than Rotorua, and services are configured accordingly, as is typical across rural and urban healthcare settings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said administrative and healthcare assistant support had historically been based in Rotorua \u201cand provided across the wider service\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaup\u014d has not had the same level of on-site support, and this is being addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilson said Health NZ was recruiting a Taup\u014d healthcare assistant and had trained additional administrative staff across the Lakes integrated community health service to provide increased support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are also reviewing rostering, workload distribution, and processes to reduce non-clinical demands on nurses where appropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Dr]()
Dr Ayesha Verrall, the Labour Party\u2019s health spokeswoman, says patients are “struggling to get the care they need\u201d. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Health NZ data showed that less than half of registered nurse graduates who applied for a job in the Lakes district last year were employed.<\/p>\n
While Health NZ said the employment numbers depended on vacancies, Labour health spokeswoman Dr Ayesha Verrall said patients were \u201ccrowded into hospital corridors and struggling to get the care they need\u201d.<\/p>\n
Verrall said nurses wanted to care for their communities but were having to look overseas for work.<\/p>\n
She said Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had left hospitals \u201covercrowded and understaffed, and nurses unemployed\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Government had found no money to hire locally trained nurses, she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Health]()
Health Minister Simeon Brown said about 1800 graduate nurses are being hired across the country this financial year alone. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n
In response, Health Minister Simeon Brown said Labour had six years to develop a \u201ccredible workforce plan and they failed\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, they chose to restructure the entire healthcare system in the middle of a pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said the \u201crestructure without a plan\u201d left $28 billion \u201cmanaged on a single Excel spreadsheet, waiting lists ballooning, and frontline staff under increased pressure\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said about 1800 graduate nurses were being hired this financial year nationally and Health NZ was \u201cwell on track to meet that target\u201d.<\/p>\n
About 2000 additional nurses and \u201chundreds more doctors\u201d had been employed at Health NZ since 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis progress is encouraging, but we know there is still more work to do to ensure patients are seen sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown said the focus was on \u201cbacking frontline staff\u201d and ensuring more resources reached patients.<\/p>\n
How many registered nurse graduates are getting jobs? <\/p>\n
Health NZ data provided to the Labour Leader\u2019s Office under the Official Information Act on January 22 shows 59 registered nurse graduates applied to work in the Lakes district in 2025 through the Advanced Choice of Employment (Ace) programme, which matches nurses to positions in the health system.<\/p>\n
Of those applicants, 23 \u2013 39% \u2013 were employed.<\/p>\n
In previous years, 34 were hired in 2024 (71%), 21 in 2023 (72%), 19 in 2022 (53%), 21 in 2021 (37.5%), and 22 in 2020 (47%), Health NZ official information on September 10 showed.<\/p>\n
The provisional figures did not include applicants who declined offers or withdrew their applications. <\/p>\n
Wilson said it followed a \u201cnationally co-ordinated\u201d recruitment process for graduate nurses through Ace.<\/p>\n
For the 2026 intake, Lakes shortlisted applicants who live or whakapapa to the region and interviewed those who had done clinical placements within Lakes.<\/p>\n
Fifty-three applications were received and 36 applicants were interviewed, Wilson said.<\/p>\n
Through Ace, 21 graduate nurses were employed in Rotorua and two in Taup\u014d. Several applicants were matched to roles in other districts or chose alternative employment, he said.<\/p>\n
Wilson said it was recruiting a further three graduates from the national talent pool.<\/p>\n
Lakes aimed to employ as many graduates as possible, with numbers dependent on vacancies, he said.<\/p>\n
Megan Wilson<\/a> is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She said in her view, compared with Rotorua Hospital, \u201cwe\u2019re like a poor neighbour\u201d. Gretton reduced her hours…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[180679,806,36230,17517,115,6435,2082,305,527,5838,2241,31181,13840,6377,111,43,139,11515,69,29848,1327,312,1516,1886,1852,61,102,25493,1530],"class_list":["post-337397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-administrative","tag-as","tag-assistants","tag-because","tag-calls","tag-does","tag-for","tag-have","tag-healthcare","tag-help","tag-hospital","tag-labelled","tag-like","tag-neighbour","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nurse","tag-nz","tag-poor","tag-rotorua","tag-says","tag-staff","tag-support","tag-taup","tag-to","tag-with","tag-workload","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}