36000 nurses strike nationwide after 'distressing' pay offer

It comes after the New Zealand Nurses Organisation said bargaining had stalled over “big ticket items” centred on public safety.

Union members were also disappointed with Health New Zealand restricting “bargaining parameters” for the settlement to 1% of total employee costs.

This would equate to 0.5% in the first year, and up to 1% in the second year.

Health NZ spokesman Mark Shepherd defended the offer, citing increases over the past several years, but an Auckland Hospital intensive care nurse, Sam Ohjer, said that was a long overdue catch-up after years of being underpaid.

“We had a huge catch-up last year or the year before which was well deserved after ... falling behind for so many years, especially during the rock star economy – that only happened because wages froze for 10 years,“ said Ohjer.

“We’ve finally kind of caught up a little bit and here we are going backwards the following year, it’s just abysmal.”

Jinty Graham, who was among nurses striking at a demonstration outside Wellington hospital, said the pay offer was not enough.

“We’re just distressed, truly distressed with the offer that is being spoken about.

“We want to be paid what we deserve and, in this climate, we think a cost of living adjustment to our salary is perfectly viable.”

She said it was crucial there were safe staffing levels across the country.

Leon Brooke, another nurse striking outside the hospital, said Health NZ’s offer of a 1% pay rise does not match inflation and any increase needed to reflect the cost of living.

“Inflation means that we’re back to square one. We get back to square one before too long, so yeah that is true, but it’s going to be wiped out before too long so this needs to be a continuous thing, there needs to be continuous pay increases to properly reflect what we do,” Brooke said.

Meanwhile, an Auckland nurse said cutting clinical support staff would make it harder to care for patients.

About 40 hospital support workers at Auckland Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre have been told their jobs could be gone next year.

Health NZ told RNZ additional staff brought in to help during Covid were no longer needed as more nurses have been hired.

But Ohjer said support staff are still being relied on and having someone handle non-clinical tasks such as making beds, delivering meals, and tidying wards, means she can focus on providing clinical support to patients.

Another Auckland nurse told RNZ staffing levels were dangerously low.

“I’m mainly here because of the unsafe staffing in our health system,” North Shore Hospital nurse Alice said.

“The thing with patient numbers in the hospitals now, as opposed to 30 years ago ... no one is convalescing, you’re either acutely ill or you’re not there.”

Another nurse, Geraldine, said the ratio of nurses to patients was currently unsuitable.

“We want to have ratios of one [nurse] to four [patients], instead of one to six or more. People are overwhelmed and it’s not safe.”

Her colleague, Connie, agreed and said more was being expected of nurses.

“As people leave they’re not being replaced, so they’re not employing any more. They expect nurses to carry on doing the work they’re doing plus take on another load, so we’re feeling very overworked.”

The union and Health NZ said hospital staffing would remain at a safe level during the eight-hour strike.

Speaking at Parliament, Health Minister Shane Reti expressed some unhappiness that nurses had resorted to striking so early in negotiations.

“It is a little bit disappointing that so early in the bargaining process they’ve gone to this action, but I commend them and Health New Zealand to get around the table and find a way forward.”

Reti also disputed the union’s claim that budget constraints were putting patient safety at risk.

“That’s not correct. $1.4 billion of new money, this year, which is actually what the fiscal and economic parameters for the previous Government were as well.

“We have monitoring in place ... to make sure that there is no harm to patient safety.”

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