SUVA (Sun/PINA) — More nurses are leaving the Fiji Islands for the Marshall Islands, where they get more attractive wages, Fiji Nurses Association General-Secretary Kuini Lutua said.
Lutua said two weeks ago three staff nurses from Suva’s Colonial War Memorial Hospital and two from Nausori Health Center left.
They went to join other Fiji nurses now serving in the Marshall Islands. The continuing departure of nurses for jobs overseas underscores concerns of a shortage in Fiji hospitals.
Lutua said 29 nurses left in the first quarter of this year.
“With a little over 1700 nurses we have in Fiji, 29 leaving in the first four months is very high,” Lutua said. “Most of the nurses have worked for at least 15 years in hospitals around the country and they are the experienced ones,” she said.
“Agents have been requesting more local nurses.”
Lutua said a job evaluation exercise on the working conditions and salaries for nurses would be carried out by the government.
