The following is an urgent update from the Ministry of Health (MoH) which is seeking expressions of interest from health and care professionals for Covid-19 response assistance.  

FROM THE MoH 

The Ministry of Health is seeking expressions of interest from health and care professionals who are able and willing to work for a limited amount of time as part of the national strategic approach to managing Covid-19.  
 
We have already been asking retired health professionals to express their interest in working within the health and disability system. We have also had interest from other people who are not currently working in clinical roles, for example those on maternity leave.  
 
So far, more than 2500 healthcare workers, including 606 nurses, 587 doctors, 58 midwives and 203 medical laboratory scientists have signed up - and this number continues to grow. We would now also like to hear from current health and care workers who may now be available as non-essential services are paused.  
 
We are seeking people to work in both general and clinically specialised roles as we scale up the health and care workforce. People will be matched to roles based on their competencies, and appropriate training and oversight will be provided (where required) to ensure safe practice.  
 
The Ministry of Health has put in place a system to nationally coordinate the matching of supply and demand. This means understanding who is available to work and matching them to roles that need to be filled in the sector. Some of these will be patient contact roles, while others will be supporting services such as Healthline and contact tracing, which can be done remotely.  
 
The Ministry of Health is partnering with Accent Health to manage this process on our behalf. For health workers, they will be collecting information about their availability, co-ordinating re-registration with the relevant regulatory council where required, and then supporting the process to get into employment quickly.  
 
Employers will be able to log their workforce requests and then people will be matched to positions. We are aware that demand may exceed supply and we are developing a prioritisation process to manage this. This will be communicated once finalised.  
 
Health or care workers who are able to assist with the Covid-19 response and employers can register here:

www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-novel-coronavirus-information-specific-audiences/covid-19-novel-coronavirus-resources-health-professionals/expressions-interest-covid-19-response