The nurses deal continues to reverberate on.

So to recap the nurses were given a pay increase and an extra $38 million for 500 more nurses. So yesterday, the discussion was on where we could find these 500 nurses

Bringing nurses back to New Zealand was one idea. Health boards' spokesman Jim Green suggested, to boost staffing numbers, alongside getting those who had left the profession to return, getting more new-graduates, and getting others from elsewhere in healthcare.

So let’s look at that. Getting others from elsewhere in healthcare is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Already we’ve heard of aged care staff returning to nursing for more money. Now that might be good for nursing but it’s a blow for aged care which is already in its own staffing crisis.

Getting new graduates means enrolling more students. It might happen but there will be a considerable time lag before they come on stream. Plus there will have to be more investment in training capacity which I’m not sure is budgeted for

Getting those who have left the profession to return is bringing in an older workforce and incurring retraining expenses. And those who left, left not just because of money but their distaste for the profession, its stresses and it’s lack of reward. They’ve also left and found a new happy place. Good luck in getting them back

And finally, bringing back the nurses who left and went overseas. Well, today’s papers are full of stories of expat New Zealand nurses who aren’t coming home. One nurse working in Queensland is getting $5000 a fortnight. Her contemporaries who stayed in New Zealand are getting $1300.

She says the deal is nowhere near enough to bring her home. Friends and family might lure her home but, unless she saves a lot, she won't be able to buy a house.

It appears to me that if we are to find 500 nurses within a year to improve nurses working conditions we going to have to import them. And then the whole immigration band-aid that we’ve put over the economy and our job market is back.

We’re stuck like hamsters in a wheel frantically running to stand still.

The whole thing is to be repeated with the teachers. Their situation is so similar. Not enough pay. Not enough teachers. Let’s pay them more to get more teachers. But where do we magic them up from.

Here’s a teacher fact for you. Did you know the average age of teachers in New Zealand is 57.5? I think that’s the most damning statistic. They’re mostly the people who can afford to be paid so little because of a supportive partner and have a calling. My Mum kept teaching until she was in her mid-seventies. Why? Because her school needed her and couldn’t find anyone else. She said she was a face of the crisis.

Now I haven’t got a silver bullet answer. But I will say that for near enough 30 years we have run our social economy on a shoestring. And that means as we approach 2020 that we don’t have enough doctors, nurses, teachers, police, engineers or builders. But we have heaps and heaps of lawyers, accountants and marketing executives. The shoestring is close to snapping.