Why nurses have been driven to strike
Nurses have not made the decision to strike today lightly – the last national nurses’ strike was more than 30 years ago. But 10 years of underfunding have left our hospitals in such a state that patients and nurses are, more often than not, unsafe.
Nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants arrive at work every day not knowing whether they will be able to look after their patients properly, whether they will get a meal break, finish on time, or be assaulted or abused.
They might even struggle to get a toilet break.
Chances are there will not be time to properly read every patient’s notes, or ensure that all patient needs are met.
Chronic understaffing has meant we are forced into ‘‘care rationing’’, where we must prioritise who gets what care and when. We simply cannot provide all the care we would like, and the care our patients deserve, with the numbers currently on the ground.
It is routine for us not to have the right skill mix and expertise in our nursing and midwifery teams, and investment in professional development to expand our expertise is always put last.
This unsafe picture means we are forced to decide on the fly what can be done – which medications can be given on time, which dressings changed and which patients can be mobilised.
We might not be able to help someone with showering, or mobilising, because other more urgent cares are needed. We might not even have time to sit down and properly explain what is happening to you.
This inadequate staffing also means sicker patients, who are more likely to be readmitted or stay in hospital longer.
Some areas routinely depend on our members doing double shifts, or working on days off. In other areas, the work is so stressful that staff are not allowed to work fulltime, so their pay is even lower. Sickness rates are high and, despite a good multi-employer collective agreement (MECA), it is often a struggle by members to have sick leave honoured.
An example given to me this week was of a district health board that did not want a nurse who was receiving chemotherapy to take sick leave for it. Another was a nurse who was advised that the major surgery she was having did not really require six weeks off work.
To put it simply, the people who look after our most vulnerable have had a gutsful.
They want a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. They want to go home at the end of a shift feeling that they have looked after their patients well. They do not want to go home feeling so tired and upset that they cannot enjoy their family or social life.
Our hospitals are not safely staffed, and unkept promises by DHBs have left New Zealand Nurses Organisation members feeling embittered and not trusting the DHBs to implement safe staffing mechanisms.
The promise of more staff will help, but not go all the way to filling these holes. Yet those holes need to be filled soon, before even more nurses are lost.
Today, when we walk off the job, we are doing it for ourselves, for our patients and for our health service.
New categories of human rights pop up overnight like mushrooms.