Ballaratburd

Can’t offer any advice re Perth as I’m over in Victoria. Cost of living is higher but then so are the wages, it depends what you want and where you live, we moved to a country town so we could get a cheap mortgage but our wages remain the same as if we still lived in the city therefore more disposable income. If your job is on the skills list I would definitely look into getting your skills assessment done and applying for a 189 visa, if granted this gets you and your family permanent residency so when you do move over you don’t have to worry about getting sponsored to work. Re opportunities in Australia vs the UK. Some people on this forum are very quick to shoot this phrase down as you have seen. Australia is not the land of milk and honey as perceived by many however there are many benefits to raising kids here, the weather brings a different lifestyle, kids are more interested in sport, there are a lot of good schools here and it’s not just the elite or the genius working class kids who get the opportunity to get a really good education, I come from a very deprived area in the west of Scotland so I can appreciate what your wife means by “better opportunities” not everyone on this forum will know what she means. Are you close to your family? It can be hard raising kids on the other side of the world and it’s a big reason many ex pats move home, you have to weigh up the benefits of living here (of which there are many) over not having your children grow up amongst family and close friends.

I’m not disagreeing with you that the care was poor but I suppose it’s important to keep in mind that in Australia (well Victoria at least) nurses look after 4 patients in a public hospital whereas in all likelihood your relative would have been one of anywhere up to fourteen patients with one registered nurse looking after her.

By about 3/4 degrees maybe [emoji23]

Aussies hate cats. I know that is an extreme generalisation but it really shocked me when I moved here the amount of rules regarding cats and most Australians I know think of cats as pests. It has been mentioned above about cats being trapped and taken to the pound but I’ve heard so many horror stories about cats being trapped and killed. Every other day I see flyers tapes to lampposts about missing cats. I came here with the intention of shipping my two cats over at a later stage, however after being here for a while and realising the rules (cat curfews etc) I decided it wasn’t fair to fly them out here just to keep them indoors and my sister agreed to keep them. Of course that isint always an option for everyone. If you did decide to take your boy here I would seriously consider keeping him indoors until you can build him a cat run. It’s getting common here for people to put mesh up so they can be confined completely to the back yard.

Can I just say they have an absolute cheek, I know it doesn’t help your situation but the UK nursing and midwifery training is miles ahead of Australia! I have had plenty students here and the amount of placement and contact hours they have is laughable. Good luck with it all [emoji106]

Thank you so much. Even as I was looking online at jobs and houses back in Scotland I had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that it was just hormones and my current feelings making me go a bit mad! The minute my husband got the email to tell him about the police residency rules it was like something snapped me back to reality. I think I just need to accept that whilst I will never have those deep connections with people like I do at home, I am fortunate to have a lot of good friends here and I just have to start speaking up that I am a bit lonely as a new mum and need more contact with people. I’ve also decided that I will return to work one day a week come July as I think that the interaction there will be really good for me.

The only reason I say this is because when we moved here 5 years ago, my husband quit his job and decided he would just “get a job doing anything” until he decided what to do in Australia (he was very burnt out from the UK police) however it took almost 6 months to find permanent work and after two years of working in admin jobs and realising that Australian university wasn’t an option he gave up and reapplied for the police here! Luckily he is very happy with his decision, but it was a lot of hard work and effort to get into a job that he could have just transferred over to in the first place. What is AHPRA’s issue with UK midwives? I’m an RN but I was very lucky to apply and get registered just before all the issues with diploma vs degree etc arose.

The main differences are patient ratios and staffing levels. (I have only ever worked in Victoria so I can’t speak to other states) in the main public hospitals in Melbourne it is 1:4 on a day shift and 1:8 on a nightshift, however it changes depending on the acuity of the ward. ED is 1:3, theatre and recovery I believe varies and ICU obviously is 1:1. On the wards here if someone phones in sick we can’t simply say “let them work short” because the law dictates the ratios and it is well protected by the unions (as it should be. Other differences, yes drugs can be quite hard to get used to, Aussies tend to use the brand names for a lot of drugs rather than the generic names, it’s a bloody hassle at first but you get used to it eventually. They abbreviate everything, a central line is a CVC, a catheter is an IDC, a blood sugar is a BSL, antibiotics are “antis” you get my general drift, they seem very behind the UK in so many aspects but then in certain ways they are much further ahead. Met calls for example are taken very seriously over here and it has had a direct correlation with decrease in inpatient mortality. With regards to what@hamsterwheel has said I’m afraid I beg to differ. A lot of staff are not helpful at all (particularly if you are working bank or agency) most places don’t practice team nursing and it isint in the Aussie nursing culture to offer help to their colleagues (no matter how hard I try to instil it in my staff they are just too interested in their own work to help anyone else) I have worked in numerous hospitals in Melbourne and some places have equipment even older than the worst we had in deepest darkest Glasgow so please don’t be expecting everywhere to have bright and shiny equipment! Lastly with regards to hospital zero tolerance, sorry hamster wheel but that is wholly inaccurate in my experience, in fact hospitals here I find are worse as the doctors are much more keen to try and keep aggressive patients on the wards for treatment compared to at home where they were told to buck up or leave. However the main difference here is that all hospitals have security guards and trained staff (including myself) who attend “code grey” incidents and help support the ward staff when they have particularly aggressive or psychotic patients, we didn’t have that at all at home and it is something that makes me feel safer working here. I can’t speak to ages care as I have never worked in aged care here but I hear it’s not the best. Overall nursing in Australia is much more supported than nursing in the UK. It can be daunting at first but once you get stuck in and realise your work ethic is valued very highly here due to the young Aussie nurses not really wanting to get there hands to dirty for long, you will settle in and go far I’m sure [emoji6]

Really? That surprises me given how hard it is to fill nursing and medical positions out here. It certainly is more difficult to get sponsored these days but jobs are always available.

I don't think I truly appreciated the place until quite recently, but then moving to Australia has completely changed me as a person in more ways than i could ever have thought. To be honest I just miss people, I miss the sense of humour, I miss being able to make a joke and people get it instantly or speaking in my strong Glaswegian accent and not having to constantly repeat myself. I dont miss the weather, or the working conditions, or the constant need to holiday abroad.

I completely appreciate everyones opinion whether it is more geared towards staying in Australia or moving back to the UK. I do have a decent circle of friends here but i think moving to a new town and having a baby has just knocked me a little bit. Overall I love living in Australia but having been here for 5 years now I can appreciate Scotland more as well.

Think very carefully before you do this. If you were to retrain what would you do? Australian university courses are very expensive and you wouldn’t be entitled to fee help as you are not a citizen. Where are you moving to? Casual bank midwives are generally always being advertised at my local hospital.

Your salary depends on how many years you have been qualified as a nurse. Nights and weekends work out roughly time and a half, Sunday’s and public holidays closer to double time. If you don’t work the public holiday you get paid a day in lieu, which after five years here I still can’t get over [emoji23]

I would be very surprised if nursing or midwifery ever came off the skills list as it is a skill that will always be in demand here. However as previously mentioned it is a pretty labour intensive degree to undertake and if you are only doing it as a means to moving here you could struggle. That being said you may find you really love it and find your true calling in life haha. I am a nurse and I love my job, working in Australia as a nurse is a million times better than working for the NHS and the Victorian government are intent on making it even better for us by keeping patient ratios and increasing our base salary this year.

Yes the lake is absolutely beautiful at the moment, in fact I am just getting ready to head out to walk around it!

Alas the decision has been taken out of my hands. Unlike Australia the UK had rules regarding residency before you can apply for the police. Three years for police Scotland and Five years for MOD police. My husband couldn’t get a job back in Scotland even if we did decide to return. To be honest finding this out today has actually made me feel relieved. I wonder if so many of my feelings were because of the recent upheavals in life (new baby, new house, new town) as opposed to actually wanting to move back to Scotland.

It depends on whether you are looking to rent or buy. We have very recently moved from Melbourne to Ballarat (hour and half drive/train from Melbourne CBD) As house prices in Melbourne are absolutely ridiculous. Geelong is a lovely place and initially we intended to buy there however with our small budget and the increase in Geelong house prices it wasn't meant to be. We really like Ballarat however it is a very big commute and we underestimated just how hard the commute would be on a daily basis. We have lived all over Melbourne and know the place pretty well so happy to answer any questions.

Haha, the Ballarat weather has been throwing many 35 and 40 degree days of late which isint that enjoyable but overall the weather isint much different to Melbourne. I actually really like Ballarat as a town, much nicer and more personable than Melbourne but overall we still find the same issues here. Yes all of our family is back in Scotland, we have friends here but let’s just say that a lot of people have really disappointed me since I had my baby and I’m perhaps revaluating some relationships. We will definitely “act as if living back” when we go home so we can try experience it as much as we can what it would be like if we did move back. Part of me thinks we are mad to even consider moving home, we have it pretty good here and we have worked hard for it, the other part of me thinks that I had an itch and it’s now been scratched. Moving here, living here for 5 years, it’s all been great fun and I’ve learned a lot of life lessons but now I should go home and appreciate what I left behind.

Hi everyone, i have lurked on and off this forum for years but never actually posted until now. I moved to Melbourne with my boyfriend (now husband) in 2013. I wont go into the nitty gritty of how much we struggled initially but after long periods of unemployment and casual work we finally managed to secure jobs and visas and now after 5 years we are both in very good jobs (Im a nurse manager, he is a police officer) Have just moved to Ballarat (Regional Victoria) and bought our first house, we have some savings, have paid off a huge chunk of our debts and life in general is amazing....so why am I so homesick? We had our first baby in September. Ever since he was born i have felt so incredibly unsettled and my husband admitted the other night he feels the same. Now I completely appreciate that moving to a new place and having a baby are significant life changes and it could just be a temporary period of being unsettled. Six months ago if you had asked me if i would ever move home I would have said not in a million years, I love the weather, i love the lifestyle, we earn good money and by buying a house outside of Melbourne we have a small mortgage which should allow me to stay at home a lot with our son and any future children. I feel as if ever since our baby was born the things that used to annoy me about being here are magnified and the main one is that In general we find Australians quite hard to get along with. Dont get me wrong I have quite a lot of friends here but in general i have just never felt like I have any proper deep connections with anyone I have met since moving here, except for one friend who is also Scottish. That constant feeling like you dont belong to a place. Before I had my son I just ignored the feelings and concentrated on the positive aspects of living here (of which there are many) but i cant shake this feeling that its not going to go away. We have decided to go home in September for a holiday which I think is definitely the most sensible thing to do. Ultimately there is not a massive rush to do anything anyways as we are currently waiting on our citizenship and my son is just a baby. Part of me feels like moving back to Scotland would be taking away so many opportunities for him like the weather and the lifestyle, but on the other hand I now feel like i am depriving him of the opportunities that growing up close to family and friends would offer. I also couldnt imagine ever going back to work for the NHS after experiencing how much better the work culture is in Victorian hospitals. That being said I dont intend on working much more than on a casual basis for the next decade whilst i raise my children. Basically im just looking for a bit of casual chat with other ex pats to get your general opinions on things. Thanks all