About 200 nurses apply for redundancies since Metro North Hospital and Health Service announced moves to replace nurses with graduates MORE than 200 nurses have put their hand up for a voluntary redundancy since the Metro North Hospital and Health Service announced moves to replace about 140 registered nurses with graduates on temporary contracts. Metro North CEO Malcolm Stamp told a budget estimates hearing on Wednesday about 224 of the hospital's 3916 nurses had put their hand up for a voluntary redundancy. But he said out of those, the hospital only planned to approve 140 redundancies. The health service had come under fire for its handling of the restructure and was forced to apologise by Health Minister Lawrence Springborg for an initial letter it sent to more than 3000 nurses. Mr Springborg, however, said he believed the plan to replace experienced nurses with graduates had merit. "There's a lot of merit in actually inviting those people who are say burnt out, coming to the end of their careers to want leave the organisation to actually make way for nurse graduates," he said. It comes as nurses plan to protest outside State Parliament today against the restructure plans.