Elective surgeries cut as nurses hit their limits

ELECTIVE surgeries are being cancelled at the Royal Hobart Hospital as theatre nurses ban overtime in their bid for fairer pay and work conditions.

Unions say morale among nurses at the hospital is at its lowest point in years as they struggle with an increasing workload and fewer resources.

Theatre nurses have gone to the extreme lengths of banning overtime in regards to elective surgery in the hopes that their plea for the State Government to scrap its 2 per cent wage cap will be heard.

“This was in response to nurses following through on their resolution to not work forced overtime,” ANMF branch secretary Emily Shepherd said yesterday.

“The action saw up to 10 patient surgeries not go ahead.

“The decision was made as a drastic way of showing how the service and patients’ elective surgeries are currently occurring on the goodwill of nurses, which is completely unsustainable and an inappropriate way to address growing elective surgery demand.”

ANMF director of opera- tions and strategy Andrew Brakey said theatre nurses were working up to five or six hours of overtime every day.

“We have had a single situation where we’ve seen nurses work 24 hours around the clock,” he said.

“Patients are on the table, nurses are there in a 10-12 hour shift when they were meant to have finished four or five hours ago.

“The Government hasn’t come to the table with recognition of those nurses in the way of pay and a good set of conditions, which will see better retention of nurses.”

The Government maintains its offer of a 2 per cent wage increase each year is fair and allows it to hire more nurses.

But ANMF Tasmanian branch president James Lloyd said nurses in Queensland can get paid $10,000 more for the same work.

“At the moment if a base level nurse, a grade 3 RN, wants to go to Queensland they can be paid $10,000 more,” Mr Lloyd said.

“By April next year, Tasmanian nurses and midwives will be the lowest paid nurses in Australia.

“I think this is the worst I’ve seen the hospital in 28 years.”

Theatre nurse Stuart Kirkham said the amount of overtime he and his colleagues had been forced to do to keep up with elective surgeries was taking its toll and morale was low.

“It’s happening so often now it’s becoming a strain,” he said. “It’s burning nurses out.”