HUNTER New England Health says it will continue to negotiate over staffing concerns at Tamworth hospital, but won’t be making any changes to rosters as the nurses association contemplates its next move in the long-running dispute.
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The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association held an extraordinary meeting with branch members in Tamworth yesterday, where they called on management to adhere to last week’s recommendation by the Industrial Relations of Commission of NSW that it provide an additional 10 nursing hours on night shift in the emergency department on a two-month trial.
After failing to implement it by the recommended Monday deadline, members yesterday called on the health service to reconsider its position and implement the recommendation immediately, giving it until today to comply.
If that failed to occur, association assistant general secretary Judith Kiejda said the resolution from members was to “consider the options”.
She refused to confirm stop work action could be on the cards, saying that would just play into the hands of management when it came to budgetary savings.
There is no immediate end in sight though to the dispute which centres on staffing levels within the hospital’s new emergency and maternity departments, which nurses and midwives maintain are inadequate and compromising patient safety and staff welfare.
Yesterday, Hunter New England Health general manager Brad Hansen maintained that both departments were “appropriately staffed” and they would not be implementing any changes.
“We have made the decision to pause temporary staffing additions while we continue to monitor ED activity data to understand the exact staffing needs of the service,” he said.
“To date, there has not been an increase in ED presentations that requires an assessment of staffing levels. Instead, processes exist to deal with peaks in demand and additional staff are rostered on at short notice if required.”
Ms Kiejda said members rejected these claims, saying the number of double shifts, overtime hours and rising stress levels were all examples of a staffing crisis.
“The (meeting) room was filled today with very angry, disappointed and quite frankly gob-smacked members,” she said.
“For the first time in a long time we see (management) not taking the advice of the independent umpire.”
She said the commission was “well acquainted” with the issues staff had put forward, and Hunter New England Health’s “glib line of ‘there are no issues and we’re not doing anything’ is verging on the obscene”.
Ms Kiejda said the community needed to be aware of just how much pressure its health professionals were under and demand action be taken, but that it would be up to members how they went about this.
