Nurses’ union seeks to ‘focus on solutions’
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation is urging the health minister to focus on fixing the nursing crisis rather than taking swipes at them over unresolved pay settlements.
In an interview with Stuff, Andrew Little labelled the union ‘‘unprincipled’’ and the impediment to a pay deal.
Nurses Organisation (NZNO) chief executive Paul Goulter said the union was disappointed.
‘‘We were saddened by the fact he thinks it is more important to target an organisation that is merely advocating over how nurses right around the country feel about the crisis in health.’’
The union had asked members to share experiences of what they faced every day to help him form a further view on whether there was a crisis.
‘‘They are quite sad really, people are really depressed,’’ Goulter said of the messages received so far.
The minister, who has so far refused to call health work force pressures a crisis, doubled down on comments he made publicly on Wednesday in which he described the NZNO as ‘‘talking with a forked tongue’’. ‘‘They are blocking nurses getting a pay rise,’’ Little said. New Zealand is short 4000 nurses and unions representing healthcare workers and medical societies have urged the minister to label the situation a crisis and urgently find solutions.
The union’s statistics were indicating the deficit in nursing numbers was due to nurses leaving the profession, Goulter said. ‘‘It is not about retirement. It is not about going overseas or whatever. ‘‘They are just sick and tired . . . and deciding to leave the profession. Now what we would like to see is a really good package that keeps them in the profession and part of that is paying them what they are worth.’’
The union on Wednesday called for an immediate conference with key figures in the health sector to focus on the crisis and potential solutions but was yet to hear anything back from Little’s office.
‘‘We thought it would be a circuit breaker to move this conversation along on a professional basis,’’ Goulter said.
Little said a pay equity deal ‘‘was sorted’’ late last year but the union reneged four months later.
Nurses in the public health system would be on base incomes of $10,000-$12,000 a year more than what they were now, had they taken the deal, Little said.