Advertisements encourage nurses to go overseas.

I JUST want to say I totally agree with Angela Joblin's letter regarding advertising in your magazine (Kai Tiaki advertising suggested double standard, Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, July 2004, p5).

I have thought for a long time that the magazine should not be advertising overseas positions, considering we should be trying to retain nurses in this country. I realise a magazine needs advertising to survive. However, surely some other sort of advertising could be found.

Your co-editors replied to Joblin's letter stating that "such advertisements also send a clear message to New Zealand employers about what pay rates and conditions of work nurses working here expect to receive". Does this mean we are now using advertisements to make statements to our employers? Would an article or two in the magazine or in a national newspaper not be a better idea? Don't we want the public to know what we get in comparison to other countries so we can gain their support? A national newspaper would be much better for this than an advert in a magazine aimed at nurses.

The fact is these advertisements are still encouraging nurses to leave this country and go and work overseas. Your magazine should be working to keep them here. I feel these sort of advertisements send out mixed messages. At a time when we want support for claims, we need a clear and concise message to the public, the Government and employers.

Joanne Wood, RCpN

Palmerston North 

The co-editors reply: New Zealand nurses do not work in a global vacuum; the nursing shortage is world wide and international recruitment advertisements reflect both those facts. Working overseas has always been a feature of many New Zealand nurses' careers, in times of nursing shortages and in times when there have been plenty of nurses, and overseas nursing experience is valued in our hospitals.

As well as a desire to travel, nurses' pay and working conditions and the student loan scheme contribute to many nurses' decision to go overseas. NZNO has consistently campaigned for better pay and working conditions for nurses and for changes to the student loan scheme.

Recruitment advertisements, both national and international, are a significant source of revenue for Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand and NZNO, as they are for other nursing publications.

While we acknowledge that some members would prefer not to see these advertisements in their journal, they enable a range of activities in support of our members. Without advertising revenue, NZNO could not produce a magazine of the scale of Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand without a substantial fee increase.