With Australia currently 17,000 nurses short nearly 80 percent of people said a lack of health staff was the major problem affecting the health system.
In Queensland there are severe shortages of nurses across the state’s public and private hospitals and aged care facilities.
An analysis based on 2006 Census data and ABS population projections for Queensland shows a shortage of 4,000 nurses (ENs and RNs) in 2006. If population growth is taken into account then as at 30 June 2008 Queensland is over 6,000 nurses (RNs and ENs) short.
Multiple surveys in recent years have demonstrated the depth of the nursing shortage in Queensland.
Queensland Health’s conservative shortage estimates are based only on maintaining the current service status and fails to take into account significant predicted retirements from the profession, backfill requirements for leave and training, as well as increases in services – such as new beds coming online – which all have a direct impact on the number of additional nurses required.
Data from a Private Hospitals Association of Queensland’s (PHAQ) own nursing workforce survey showed that at March 2008 there was an estimated shortage of 451 registered nurses and 129 enrolled nurses across PHAQ hospitals. By 2012 this is predicted to increase to an FTE overall shortage of 1202 registered nurses and 529 enrolled nurses.
 Without reliable information on staffing shortages in aged care figures are difficult to determine, however it is
estimated that shortages are even more acute due to the poor wages and conditions on offer and the lack of incentives for nurses to work in this sector.
Currently in Queensland there are shortages in most areas of nursing including accident and emergency, critical/intensive care, midwifery, mental health, community care, aged care and indigenous health.
The baby boomer retirement ‘bulge’
Based on a predicted retirement age of 65, over the next 20 years Australia will lose 60% of the existing employed registered and enrolled nurse labour force through retirement.
According to an Australian Health Workforce Institute report nearly 15 per cent of nurses are retiring every five years – creating a projected cumulative exodus of 90,000 nurses by 2026.
Sadly these nurses are not being adequately replaced with new graduates from existing educational programs and it seems future planning for the huge exodus of nurses from the health system is severely lacking. It seems not much has been done to keep nurses in the health system for longer through transition to retirement programs which enable the system to retain nurses and knowledge for longer.
Many nurses choose not to work in nursing
There’s a potential untapped supply of existing nurses – many of whom have chosen not to work in the profession for reasons such as inflexible work arrangements, stress, or to achieve a work/life balance.
In 2006, there were 379,949 persons with nursing qualifications [2006 ABS Census] in Australia. However only 70% of people with nursing qualifications were working as nurses [2006 ABS Census].
Increases in growth and demand
ABS 2006 Census figures on the rate of nurses per 100,000 population by state or territory revealed Queensland was well below the Australian average of 1107 nurses per 100,000 population – with Queensland at just 1025.3 nurses per 100,000 population.
In fact, there’s been a decline in the Queensland rate as the result of Queensland’s population growth (9.2%) being greater than the state’s increase in employed nurse numbers (5.3%).
The unprecedented population growth in Queensland over past decades and the ageing population will significantly increase demand for more and more complex health services going forward.
Already admission rates are up by 5.9 % on the previous year – this translates to an additional 50000 patients in one year.
With 1800 people moving to Queensland every week 12 of them to be nurses just to maintain current levels of care.
In fact, over the next ten years, Australia will require up to 13,500 new registered nurses each year to meet the increasing demand for nursing services that the ageing population will bring.
However with an estimated 2,500 new beds coming on line in Queensland Health between 2006 and 2016 not enough nursing staff have been allocated to staff them.
 What next?
The federal government should legislate to ensure safe staffing in all settings, including aged care, establish a mechanism to ascertain workforce figures that can usefully predict current and future workforce shortages.
The implementation of nursing workload measures are vital to not only the safety and quality of care in health care settings, but also the wellbeing, ongoing employment, and occupational health and safety of nurses.
In Queensland – nursing resource tools such as the Business Planning Framework in Queensland Health, must be resourced properly so that a real figure related to nursing numbers is known.
We need immediate action to develop a cross sectoral nursing and midwifery workforce plan for Queensland. Only with such a plan can we accurately predict nursing needs into the future and adequately address those needs. | 
