Graduate nurse program signals hope for understaffed aged care sector

The aged care industy welcomed 41 new recruits last Friday at the graduation ceremony of a unique nurse program designed to improve the skillset of our aged care workforce.

The Leading Age Services Australia - Victoria (LASA Victoria) Aged Care Graduate Nurse Program (ACGNP) provides the specialist training necessary to work effectively in an increasingly complicated aged care industry.

LASA-Victoria President Ingrid Williams said the sector currently faces a shortage of qualified nurses, which is alarming for the dramatically increasing ageing population.

“Concerning statistics demonstrate how delivering quality aged care training is imperative to building the capacity and capability of our industry’s workforce to care for our elderly, now and in the future,” Ms Williams said.

Thirty-three-year-old graduate Suzi Leerson said she expressed an interest in aged care early on in her career.

“I found working in the surgical ward wasn’t for me. You’d get someone coming in for a broken leg and then you’d never see them again, but you get to know people in aged care.” Ms Leersen said

Ms Leersen is now employed as a care manager and couldn’t be happier.

Yet she received little support from friends, contemporaries and mentors.

“I got told that aged care was ‘a waste of my studies’ by a placement coordinator towards the end of my undergraduate,” Ms Leersen said.

Ms Leersen said she found it upsetting to see people have that kind of attitude towards aged care.

“I think it stems back to the fundamental attitudes towards ageing," she said.

“We’ve devalued the older population in Australia.”

Ms Leersen feels people view nurses in the acute sector as being “more qualified” than those working in aged care.

“The reality is that because there is a lot less money in aged care than the acute sector, we have to use the skills acquired from our undergraduate."

"We don’t have the technology so we have to do things manually as we learnt them.”

Ms Leersen said friends assume her job is depressing because “people die all the time.”

But she is unaffected.

“Death is a part of life, and dying in care is not the worst way to die.”

“We're not in a hospital with tubes everywhere, so we have the ability to make those last years pleasant.”

Ms Leersen said specialised study is not a prerequisite for work in aged care, but there is certainly a need for it.

The ACGNP has not only provided her with information that is directly transferrable to the work place, but shown how nurses can truly make a difference to a person's life.

Photo: Program Coordinator Pamela Johnston with Suzi Leersen holding her diploma.