Sep-Oct 2016 Issue | Business View Oceania

102 Business View Oceania - September/October 2016 ive environment. The students are as- sisted by both a Clinical Liaison Nurse and an Academic Liaison Nurse. Their combined expertise allows the stu- dents to understand both the academ- ic and practical aspects of providing care across the rest home, dementia unit, and community settings. Moreover, Tamahere Eventide has a 14-month placement program for new nurses in order to attract even more young people into the industry. Dur- ing their contract, the nurses are im- mersed into every facility on site while they gain valuable experience in work- ing with the highly trained staff and interacting with the residents. Easing the graduates into this demanding pro- fession provides them with a perfect opportunity to practice their skills and they often seek permanent employ- ment into aged care as a direct result. “We started with a Dedicated Edu- cation Unit where nursing students in their third semester do 4-week place- ments with us and we take them through all our services and showcase aged care. The benefit is that they would want to work in the aged care sector in the future when they qualify. We also started a new nursing gradu- ate program where we are taking new graduates and put them through their first year of practice with a lot of sup- port and training. Because of that, we have younger nurses who are motivat- ed, knowledgeable, and highly skilled”, says Louis.