Have you ever been to the hospital in an emergency? Do you have children with serious health conditions? For some, ongoing medical assistance is a fact of life, and for those who find themselves in distressing medical situations, there is one person who often provides much needed comfort and reassurance.

This person is an Enrolled or Registered Nurse – and they are among the most under-valued and underpaid professionals in Australia.

Should you ask any recent ER, hospital or elderly patients, you will almost certainly be told that it was the nurse which either made or broke the experience. Don't get me wrong, I do not intend to diminish the importance or value of others in the medical field, I simply wish to draw attention to the under-appreciation of Australian nurses.

Surely the nurses who care for and treat us in our times of need deserve decent compensation on payday. These hard-working professionals work jobs in extraordinarily high demand, but remain limited to deplorable salary expectations.

What is going on?

The system is flawed. There are hundreds of thousands of experienced nurses in non-comparable healthcare systems who are unable to attain employment in Australia for this very reason. These 'foreign nurses' often find themselves spending their time and money attending IRON courses which promise little more than short-term placements, insufficient to lead to full time employment in Australia. Meanwhile, local nurses and those deemed to be suitable and in possession of the desired skill-set are so in demand that it beggars belief that these sought-after professionals are rewarded so poorly. Instead, they work for a pittance that members of other non-health professions wouldn't even get out of bed for.

Apart from the injustice of this, we need to ask ourselves: do we want to end up like the nursing market in the UK? Poor salaries, long hours and extremely difficult work has forced their home-grown nurses to flee the country for pastures new; countries in which their skills and training are properly acknowledged and rewarded.

There is no argument that recruitment in nursing is a candidate driven market. Nurse Unit Managers and Directors of Nursing throughout the country are crying out for experienced nurses to fill busy rosters that ensure that you and I are cared for with clinical excellence. Thankfully, the shortage of nurses is not so devastating that we are denied proper care. I sleep soundly knowing that if I get sick, hurt or even if I am attacked in the street, there is a world-class healthcare system in this country populated by amazing nurses from all over the world who, despite a constant surrounding of pain and suffering, treat and often cure, those in need.

Let's pay them properly.