A ceremony due this Saturday (August 7, 2.30pm Bldg 32 Harvard lecture theatre) will mark the end of a pilot re-entry program designed to attract aged care nurses back into the workforce.

Thirty applicants, along with family and friends, will attend the ceremony that will celebrate the end of their re-entry program in the presence of Professor Errol Payne, Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Health & Sciences; Ms Sandra Thomson, Rockhampton District Manager for Queensland Health; and Dr Lorna Moxham, Head of School, Nursing & Health Studies.

A total of 50 students have been successful across Queensland.

The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing last year allocated $310,000 to CQU to support these re-entry nurses in recognition of a national shortage of nurses working in aged care.

The grant enabled students to enrol in CQU’s nursing re-entry programs with their fees covered by federal funding. It also provided additional academic and administrative support for the program.

CQU’s re-entry program is a distance-learning program designed to reach people in regional and rural areas, to help ease the national heath industry crisis.

The program is administered nationally and internationally by Central Queensland University (with Central Queensland Institute of TAFE and the Queensland Nursing Council).

Students throughout the State, in regional and remote areas, are able to quickly update their credentials after an extended absence from work and be immediately employed in an aged-care or long term care facility.

Coordinator for the Competence Assessment Service (CQU’s re-entry program) Jenny Anastasi said there were hundreds of previously registered nurses throughout Queensland who want to come back to the workforce, but they were often deterred by the costs and red tape associated with re-entry.

The program consists of three theory modules and one clinical practice placement and assessment, with students taking an average of eight to nine months to complete. Alternatively, qualified applicants who pass assessment exams may not be required to enrol in all theory modules.

Clinical placements are arranged in existing health care facilities, in or near the town where the student lives. Students also have the opportunity to work as assistants in nursing while completing their studies.

ENDS.

Photos: Aged care nurse Cheryl Wright will among those celebrating completion of the re-entry program.