Nurses: we need more
All nurse Rian McGann wants is to be able to provide the best care for his community.
‘‘When I talk to all my colleagues, we just want safer staffing, we want to be able to provide quality service for our community. Which is the number one thing,’’ said McGann, one of the thousands of nurses who went on strike yesterday in a day of national action.
‘‘I would actually give up any sort of pay rise if it meant that I could actually just have more people on the floor. I’ll shout it from the top of my lungs until somebody hears.’’
The Nelson nurse was one 140 protesting yesterday morning on Waimea Rd. ‘‘None of us want to be out here, [but] I’m willing to keep coming out here until DHBs listen,’’ he said.
The 24-hour strike, which began at 7am yesterday and ended at 7am today. came after a failure to reach an agreement on staffing levels and pay.
New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) delegate in Nelson, Helen Spring, said the latest offer included 500 new nurses across the country, which equalled 15 new nurses across the top of the south. ‘‘It’s really about safe staffing, and we are not getting it.’’
Nelson Marlborough Health currently employs 509 nurses across the region.
Spring said she felt for nurses who were struggling to keep up with the demands of their jobs. ‘‘We need more than 15 nurses just in Nelson Hospital alone.’’
The strike action was a chance to let the DHBs know that nurses were serious about the negotiations, she said.
Nurses protesting outside Nelson Hospital held signs saying, ‘‘Look after nurses so we can look after you’’ and ‘‘Here because we care’’.
Almost all vehicle drivers tooted as they drove past the protesters clad in purple.
Nurse Maree Arps said the support from Nelsonians had been great.
NZNO organiser Daniel Marshall said that in the last 10 years, the acuteness of patients in hospitals had increased but there had been no increase in the number of nursing staff.
He said district health boards had acknowledged the need for additional staffing, and the message from the Government was that the current offer was as much as it could afford right now.
‘‘The feedback we have had from nurses is that it is not acceptable and it doesn’t meet what they need at the moment.’’
Marshall said it was important that nursing remained an attractive profession to stay in. The current environment meant nurses often travelled overseas to work or left the profession. He said the average length someone worked as a nurse was five years.
‘‘It’s the nurses who have been working for a long time who have said things are getting worse and we can’t keep going, we need to keep these young people in nursing.’’
Most hospital elective services yesterday in Nelson were cancelled yesterday. Nelson Marlborough Health said it would defer 224 appointments and six non-urgent surgeries across Nelson and Wairau hospitals due to the strike.