Getting your Australian Nursing license?

Was getting your license difficult? Short answer, yes. It just has multiple layers and timelines to follow.

For me, because I know the process has changed to online, was a longer paper form that needed to be filled out, and most documented need to be certified. I had to contact my licensing body and they needed to send a direct letter of good standing to AHPRA. I needed to contact my university and they needed to forward all of the syllabi from all nursing courses to AHPRA, this shows that we have the equivalent level of education. I also needed to contact my high school and they needed to forward a letter saying that I was taught and assessed in English. That was tricky because my high school has closed several years ago. Honestly, the hardest part was finding the right contacts. Once you knew who you needed to contact it was more time consuming than anything. I have a binder full of the entire process down to the dates and payments. These are just some of the big things that you need to do, there is many other smaller tasks. I worked on getting my license for over a month.

Once you have your license pending I applied for my working visa. There are so many visas. The most common one is the Working Holiday. This one is easy for most Canadian under 35yrs. Visa was supper standard, paper work and an emigration medical is needed to prove that you are healthy ish. Only certain medical clinics are qualified to do this.

How much was everything? All in Canadian dollars

License:

AHPRA application: $799.93

University documents: $300.00

SRNA documents: $52.50

Certified documents: $166.50

international criminal record check: $164.16

Mailing the documents: $110.00

Visa:

Visa application: $712.63

Visa Medical: $640.00

So roughly just under $3000CAN. Now, these are expenses just to get there. Does not include flights, quarantine, medical insurance, international drivers license (I already have one) and any other last minute expenses. You also need to renew your license by the end of may, and costs about $180.

Then once you get there it is the common expenses: rent, phone, groceries, the basics.

I can't stress enough the amount of paper work and emails that went into this!! And the paperwork doesn't end. Starting from scratch is hard. Besides taking care of business in Canada, I also have business in my new home. This all includes starting a new bank account, getting a tax number, setting up a superannuations (income tax equivalent), trying to remember my new phone number, the list goes on.

Because of covid, this process has changed many times, my moving date has been moved multiple times. From keeping up with new travel regulations, and getting extensions on my nursing license to present in person, and air travel was almost non existent. It was a very VERY stressful time, everything changed daily and I felt like plans changed everyday. If it wasn't for the pandemic I believe this process would have been much easier, and I had to do more work because of new regulations, regular travel you would enter the country any regular way.

I don't want this to sound intimidating to anyone, so if anyone wanted to check out my blue binder let me know. I would love to answer any questions or fear that you may have. I had help when I applied from a friend who had just returned from her year on nursing in Australia and I am forever grateful for that guidance!

xo Nicole