Most students think that getting into a health related discipline is a sure way to have a job upon graduation and the fact that Australia is facing a shortage of nurses is common knowledge.

Unfortunately it appears as though Australia has a severe shortage of experienced nurses. There are plenty of fresh graduates from university, but not enough positions for them, because experienced nurses are not available to facilitate them.

The federal government in 2009 removed caps on the intake of students into health related disciplines allowing universities to enroll as many students as they wanted. Since then there has been a 25 per cent increase in the number of students enrolling in health-related disciplines.

According to an Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation government submission, published this April, in 2014 an estimated 15% of all nursing and midwifery graduates Australia-wide will be left unemployed.

Graduate Placements are where fresh graduates work along-side and learn from their more experienced colleagues. With the shortage of experienced nurses to mentor them the Graduate Placement spots are few and the nurses vying for these spots are many.

The problem for international students is that preference is given to local students who are permanent residents or citizens for selection into a Graduate Program.

Getting these placements is one of the most important things for fresh graduates; IMMIGRATIONews spoke to few international nursing graduates for their take on the situation.

Kiran a nursing graduate from India explains that the real struggle for a Registered Nurse (RN) post studies is to get Graduate Placement.

She says "This one year (after graduation) is very costly for nursing career. There are no other place for RN's to do jobs apart from Graduate Program. If there is one it is very long journey to get a suitable position."