Australian nurses in New South Wales voted for a one-day strike in
order to campaign for increased staffing numbers across the state.
The New South Wales Nurses Association (NSWNA) committee of delegates
agreed last Tuesday to take industrial action on Wednesday, November 24
for the strike. The are sending a message about their dedication to a
1-to-4 nurse-to-patient ratio. It will be the first statewide nurses'
strike in NSW since November 2001, according to the Association. NSWNA
said that more than 250 workplace delegates representing nurses and
midwives from hospitals, health services, and aged care facilities in
NSW passed the resolution unanimously.
"Our industrial action is a last resort in response to the State
Government's refusal to implement mandated minimum nurse to patient
ratios, which will provide safer patient care, and its refusal to
provide a pay and conditions offer without unfair strings attached," the
mandate said. "We condemn the Government for its intransigence during
months of negotiations and its refusal to employ enough nurses and
midwives to provide safer levels of care for NSW residents."
As part of the strike, nurses and midwives will provide life-preserving
services at all times on November 24, but will reduce services to
current night duty staffing levels at each facility for the period,
generally between 7am and 5pm. "The workloads' management clause in the
current NSW Nurses & Midwives Award is not proving rigorous enough to
address issues such as these," NSWNA general secretary Brett Holmes
said. "The overwhelming feedback from NSW nurses is that ratios, with
the right skill mix, are the way to get hospital management to fill
vacancies and provide the staffing levels required to provide quality,
safe patient care and to protect the health and well-being of nurses."
Northern District Times published a letter from Jill Fisher Epping, RN,
calling for support for the nurses' safe staffing ratio. First she
discussed the problem at hand:
"With the current nursing number restrictions, nurses are trying to look
after too many patients. We?re burning out and leaving the profession
because it?s impossible for us to give patients the care we know they
deserve. We just don?t have time. The NSWNA is asking the government to
have mandated a ratio of one nurse to four patients in typical wards
across NSW."
She reminded readers that the issues is primarily with working
conditions, not salary:
"If nurses were focused on money, we wouldn?t be nursing. Our focus is
on giving patients the nursing care we were trained to do. It?s on
leaving work at the end of the day satisfied that the people we looked
after are now better off for us having been there."
Epping then cited the successful example of safe staffing principles in
Victoria:
"Victoria introduced nurse/ patient ratios 10 years ago. Thousands of
experienced nurses returned to the bedside and this year Victoria?s
public hospitals recorded a combined financial surplus for the sixth
successive year. Ratios are not only good for patients, they?re good for
the government, too."