Wellington, New Zealand – In the 25 years Lisa has been a healthcare assistant, short-staffing has only got worse.
Her typical day involves changing a patient’s dirty linen, clearing their rubbish, escorting them to and from the bathroom, helping them with their exercises, and feeding, walking, and washing them.
“You can’t complete the patient care because there’s just not enough of you,” Lisa told Al Jazeera. “It means you feel like you’re failing people, and it’s not fair to them or us.”
Weary from years of trying to fit 10 hours of work into an eight-hour shift, Lisa is one of more than 30,000 nurses, midwives, and healthcare assistants working in New Zealand’s District Health Boards (DHBs) who have been negotiating with the government for the last year to improve pay and working conditions.
New Zealand nurses consider new wages after strike, working hours health news
Wellington, New Zealand – In Lisa ’s 25 years as a health care assistant, the understaffed situation will only get worse.
Her typical day includes changing the patients’ dirty sheets, cleaning their trash, escorting them in and out of the bathroom, helping them exercise, feeding, walking, and washing them.
“You can’t complete patient care because you don’t have enough staff,” Lisa told Al Jazeera. “It means you feel that you have failed people, which is not fair to them or us.”
For years trying to arrange 10-hour work in 8-hour shifts, Lisa is tired of it. She is one of more than 30,000 nurses, midwives and medical assistants working at the New Zealand District Health Board (DHB). The final year of negotiating with the government to improve salaries and working conditions.
Health Minister Andrew Little says strike notices have been lifted. ”In addition to that there is a commitment to conduct a ministerial review of the safe staffing accord and the implementation care capacity demand management that has not been consistently rolled out,” he said. The Ministry of Health and the nurses union would run a recruitment campaign to fill the 1450 nursing vacancies across the country, Little said. “We need to get nurses into those roles.” Nurses union organiser David Wait said the new offer was “significantly different” from the previous offer but nurses will now get to decide whether it was acceptable or not.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Nurses voted yesterday to participate in two 24-hour strikes - on 29 August and 9 September - and another eight-hour strike on 19 August.
They had held an eight-hour strike early last month before returning to negotiations with district health boards over pay and conditions.
Collins said it was a situation of the government s own making because of the cost of reforming the health system, and bureaucratic bloat. It s not my job to tell the government what to do on this one, they ve got themselves in a hell of a pickle, she said. They shouldn t have employed 10,000 extra bureaucrats before Covid-19 came in and they shouldn t have been putting nurses through a whole restructure of the health system and spending close to half a billion dollars on it.
Striking nurses 'rightly outraged' at Government after $20 benefit increase - Judith Collins newshub.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newshub.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.