Nursing crisis with rosters in meltdown

NURSES claim they had to work overtime to cover more than 200 vacant shifts in just one month due to a staffing shortage at Cairns Hospital.

The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union is today fronting the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission to take on Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service over unmanageable loads for its Far Northern members.

The union’s acting secretary, Sandra Eales, said the legal action had been a last resort for the organisation, claiming their pleas for more staff, in particular in the hospital’s emergency department, had fallen on deaf ears.

There were particular grievances about rostering gaps, which had left many nurses and midwives working massive amounts of overtime.

“In October, I think, the roster had 213 shifts that weren’t covered,” Ms Eales said.

“When the remaining nursing staff are required to cover that overtime in double shifts, you can’t manage that sort of stretch.

“There has been a long history with an expectation of double time, and that’s just the way nurses are expected to operate.”

The union is seeking the immediate addition of a minimum 11 full-time equivalent nurses, continued eight-hour morning and evening shifts, the continued roster of 10hour night shifts, and the immediate implementation of industrially mandated workload management practices.

In a short statement, CHHHS executive director of Cairns services, Tina Chinery, said the service looked forward to continuing its discussions with the QNMU today at the Commission.

The action follows a hectic few days for Cairns Hospital last week, after a “Code Yellow” was declared due to a lack of resources in the emergency department.