What exactly is a travel nurse? Well, it isn’t any different from regular nurses. Travel nurses are those registered who come from different clinical backgrounds, but instead of being directly employed by healthcare facilities like hospitals, clinics, and the likes, they work for independent staffing agencies.
Typically, they are deployed to fill healthcare staff shortages on a temporary basis or under short-term contracts. They can be assigned anywhere in the country or even overseas. Because it involves relocation and not a lot wants that, they are usually offered attractive compensations like higher paychecks than the industry standards, housing allowances and the actual cost of relocation are covered.
How to Become a Travel Nurse in Australia?
If you are a registered nurse residing in another country but like to travel and practise your profession overseas, how do you want to become a travel nurse in Australia? If interested, here are the qualifications you need to possess:
Minimum Educational Attainment
You need to have a degree in Bachelor of Nursing from an accredited university.
Mandatory Registration
You need to have a current nursing registration under the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA). It is a national organisation that is in charge of Australia’s public health and safety.
Getting registered under AHPRA by following a comprehensive process that includes background checks, training, and identification of applicable experiences in the chosen field is crucial to being allowed to work in the country.
Experience
An experience of at least two years as a registered nurse is a must. This guarantees that the candidate has the necessary knowledge and skills to handle different health situations and challenges. This also ensures that a new working environment won’t be intimidating, which can affect the workflow and affect patient service.
Additional Certifications and Qualifications
You might also be required to present some certifications as proof of your qualification to take on specific designations that you need to fill in, especially those that are considered very crucial roles. Take for example being assigned to the emergency or trauma department, or perhaps the ICU where you might be asked to present certain types of training certificates.
Responsibilities of Travel Nurses
Regardless of the healthcare settings that you are assigned to, be it hospitals, clinics, or other health facilities, travel nurses in any parts of Australia are expected to deliver the following responsibilities:
- Be willing to travel to different areas where patient care is badly needed.
- Administer prescribed medicines and vaccines, and check vital signs such as blood pressure, weight, respiration rate, pulse rate, blood oxygen, and blood glucose level.
- Monitor patients’ health, inspection of wounds, and changing dressing if necessary.
- Ensure that the patients’ room is sterile for their safety.
- Collaborate with doctors and other health professionals to ensure the best patient care.
- Complete patients’ charts and other reports.
- Educate patients and/or their families on how to take care of and monitor the patients’ health, plus some nutritional advice.
- Always practise professionalism and attention to detail, as well as show empathy and patience at all times.
Opportunities for Travel Nurses in Australia
There is a constant demand for nurses in Australia that the local universities are having a hard time keeping up with, hence, agencies are in constant search for experienced and qualified ones. This ensures that there’s always an abundant demand for travel nurses, which makes it a practical but fulfilling career path.
Australia is a very big country with many areas where travel nurses can be deployed. This means that you can expect to be assigned to different states, which makes it all the more exciting. Unsurprisingly, the largest four Ausralian states by population – New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia – are also where the most travel nursing opportunities are.
What’s more cool with this setup is that it’s very flexible. You are allowed to choose a specific assignment that you really want to get.
Add to that is the fact that you can have the liberty to choose the length of your contract depending on how long you want to stay in one location and move to the next. This will be particularly crucial in your accumulation of more knowledge and experience that you will carry on to your next place of duty, apart from being an additional ace up your sleeves as a professional.
Salary / Compensation
Since travel nurses will sacrifice a lot of things to be one compared to regular nurses such as relocation, being deployed in high-demand places no one wants to work in, being placed in stressful departments that everyone wishes not to be assigned to, or being in ungodly shifts that many dread, you will be offered a higher salary than usual. Rightfully so because you need to be compensated for the inconvenience of moving into a different place and being away from your family.
If the average compensation of a registered nurse annually is around $80,000, a travel nurse of the same scope of work can receive an average of $96,000. This could be higher depending on the actual conditions of the workplace and the workload. For instance, a travel dialysis nurse can earn up to $130,000 per year.
This could also depend on the employer or agency, as well as the actual location of the facility you will work in. If you are assigned to major cities in Australia like Sydney or Melbourne, you will be getting more, mainly due to the cost-of-living factor.
Having said that, the cost of relocation and housing are typically shouldered by the agency through reimbursements and not given to you outright. Therefore, you need to have a budget for these beforehand, particularly if you are assigned to places with a higher cost of living. However, be sure to make this clear from them before signing any contract.