District Health Boards Consider Final Recommendations on Offer to Nurses
District Health Boards will contact the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO)on final recommendations on the offer to nurses, while staff are undertaking a strike until this morning.
Final recommendations have been made by the facilitator to both parties, District Health Boards (DHBs) and NZNO.
DHB spokesperson Helen Mason, said that DHBs would be considering those recommendations now and contacting the nurses union “shortly” for an agreement. “DHBs are going to be considering those recommendations and we will be making contact with NZNO to talk about recommendations and agree a path forward,” she said.
However, she would not give details of the recommendations or indicate when the union would be contacted and stressed the priority was for patient safety now.
The talks had been an “extremely robust process” which strongly heard concerns of both parties over pay and working conditions, she said.
On Wednesday she said DHBs were disappointed that the Nurses Organisation had not waited to consider the final recommendations before proceeding with industrial action. The final recommendations would not be binding on either party, she said. Tairawhiti DHB chief executive Jim Green will lead the negotiations while Ms Masons is away for the next few weeks. Some DHBs sought extra staff today to deal with winter demand in emergency departments but stressed that the contingency plans were working. Capital and Coast DHB chief medical officer, Dr John Tait, along with Ms Mason and Mr Green, thanked the volunteers and nurses who went the extra mile to make sure services continued in emergency departments and patients were safe.
“The response so far has gone to plan and I think again this is a testament to the efforts of the DHBs over the past three months in getting their contingency plans working so well,” Dr Tait said. More staff and volunteers had attended DHBs than anticipated and some had to even be turned away.
“It’s also been reported to us that hospitals have had more satff and volunteers come forward than planned, and that occupancy levels are as expected,” Dr Tait said. While for Dr Tait’s DHB there has been no requirement to call in additional staff, a couple of other DHBs have had to seek additional staff to cope with the winter medical demand, Ms Mason said.