www.stuff.co.nz
Tens of thousands of Americans have looked into moving to New Zealand this week, with the country’s health workforce set to benefit from those disillusioned with United States President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Since Sunday, more than 40,000 Americans have visited government website New Zealand Now which has information for people interested in moving here.
It was the prospect of another four years under a Trump presidency which pushed mental health nurse Valentino Johnson to move to New Zealand with his family.
The 44-year-old lives in Texas a state which has recorded more than 18,000 Covid-19 deaths.
He is one of hundreds of US healthcare workers who want to migrate to New Zealand because it appears to be a “place where people care enough about each other” to follow public health rules.
“The country is becoming so divisive,” he said. “I want to raise my son somewhere he can be respected.”
He has been offered a nursing job in the Waikato and will arrive next week.
Since lunchtime on Wednesday, Accent Health Recruitment has received about 200 inquiries from medical professionals – prompted by the close US presidential election race.
It was about 50 times the company’s usual number of daily inquiries, managing director Prudence Thomson said.
“These are not new graduates, these are really experienced people who have established practices in the US who are looking to make the move.”
She was confident there would be enough jobs to satisfy demand, with an ageing health workforce and population.
A shortage of general practitioners is already causing concern, while the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) estimates specialist shortages of about 24 per cent around the country.
Emergency room doctor Rob Brandt plans to move with his wife and daughter to New Zealand but as yet has not had any job offers.
On the day he spoke to Stuff, Brandt had admitted two patients with Covid-19.
For six months he had been isolating away from his family in a pool house, only going into his home to shower.
He still spoke with many people who believed the pandemic was a hoax.
The hospital where he works had not yet been overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases but numbers were starting to “skyrocket” and winter would add further pressure.
Nurse Ana Carino, 33, fears for her safety sometimes at work in a hospital in Midland, Texas.
She will arrive in New Zealand in six weeks to take up a job in Invercargill.
“You guys don’t have many cases. The US president has not been proactive in handling it [the pandemic],” she said.
“I work in a hospital where people are dying from Covid-19 and it is not a joke.”
