HOSPITAL administrators have agreed to put extra shifts in place in a new move to solve the ongoing staffing row in new units at the Tamworth hospital.
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Health, nursing, medical and political figures emerged from a roundtable meeting late yesterday set up by Nationals MP Kevin Anderson in an attempt to resolve the long-running dispute between staff and the health service.
Mr Anderson claimed “a great outcome” from a meeting initially designed to thrash out some sort of compromise deal between the parties.
The new hospital emergency department and the maternity unit have been at the core of the row over staffing rosters since they opened a couple of months ago.
The standoff, where the hospital management had refused to put two additional staff shifts on the roster for the wards, has gone on for months, been the subject of one industrial relations commission hearing and is set down for another hearing today.
But Mr Anderson last night indicated there’d been a clear breakthrough in a compromise.
He said nursing staff who’d attended the meeting were satisfied with undertakings and new shifts that Hunter New England Health chief executive Michael Di Rienzo had agreed to.
Mr Anderson said the hospital supported the call for one extra nursing staff overnight shift in the maternity unit, but they’d also agreed to an interim three-month arrangement in the emergency department.
That involved, he said, using two nursing sisters from the short-stay unit being co-opted to help on the emergency department floor when the unit wasn’t at full operation.
This would be trialled for three months, until the short-stay unit was supposed to come online fully, and the staffing roster would be reviewed then, he said.
“This is an excellent outcome. Mr Di Rienzo listened to what’s happening up there and he heard about situations that are not copybook,” Mr Anderson said.
Last night, Nurses and Midwives’ Association general secretary Brett Holmes said, in relation to yesterday’s outcomes, he remained concerned they were only temporary solutions.
“I remain very concerned that these are not long-term solutions and that there is another review of the maternity unit to be undertaken, which leaves the ultimate outcome still unknown. We welcome the fact that the local heath district has seen the need to meet (yesterday) with both local management and our local branch representatives,” he said.
The health service would not comment on the meeting last night and is expected to make a statement today.
