Nurses and Midwives Protest Missing Care Hours

BY SARAH JAMES

Hundreds of nurses and midwives at John Hunter Hospital have staged a rally during their lunch-break in protest of chronic understaffing.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) has found patients missed out on nearly 7000 hours of nursing care between December 2016 and July 2017, breaching the Public Health System Nurses and Midwives Award.

"Under the...Award, public hospitals must provide a minimum number of nursing hours per patient each day, in most wards at John Hunter the minimum is 6.0 nursing hours, yet Hunter New England Local Health District failed to deliver it repeatedly," said NSWNMA General Secretary Brett Holmes.

This follows an audit conducted at Belmont Hospital which revealed the hospital is operating with less than the minimum number of nurses required.

Members of the NSWNMA say nurses and midwives have reached breaking point, which is ultimately impacting patient care.

"The level of understaffing at John Hunter cannot continue," argued Brett. "Our members are fed up with inadequate levels of patient care, the opening of unfunded and understaffed beds, forced excessive overtime, sick leave not being replaced, an excessive use of underqualified staff, missed meal breaks and unpaid overtime."

The NSWNMA are calling on Hunter New England LHD to employ more nurses as soon as possible to fix this problem.

Photo courtesy of Sarah James

Flu Epidemic Pushing Nurses to Breaking Point

BY SARAH JAMES

Staff at John Hunter Hospital are being pushed to the limit, with there being not enough nurses to keep up with the record number of admissions.

In 2016, there was a total of 132 confirmed cases of Influenza A and B admitted for care. This number has risen dramatically to 156 during the past year.

While additional beds were provided to support the growing number of admissions, additional staff were not put on.

The low levels of staff has resulted in many nurses being forced to work overtime, often unpaid.

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) General Secretary Brett Holmes says unless staff numbers increase, it could jeopardise patient care.

"Clearly patients are missing out when short staffing situations occur, and when there are poor skill mix situations," he said. "That's the use of under-qualified staff to replace the registered nurses and enrolled nurses as a stopgap measure to try and keep those additional beds open, and that means of course some patients aren't getting the highest levels of care they deserve."

Brett Holmes says members of the NSWNMA will be meeting to next week to find a solution to the problem.

Source: National Blood Authority