Exhausted Te Whatu Ora nurses will begin several local strikes on Monday in response to their concerns about staff shortages continuing to go unaddressed, NZNO says.
The actions by Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) members follow a 24-hour nationwide strike by more than 36,000 Te Whatu nurses, midwives, health care assistants and kaimahi hauora on 30 July.
NZNO delegate and District Nurse Lesley Pook says North Shore District Nursing Service nurses will begin a week-long "uniform strike" on Monday 18 August.
"Instead of uniforms, we will wear T-shirts saying ‘Not Enough Nurses’. These are designed to prompt patients and members of the public to ask us about the conditions we work in.
"The North Shore District Nursing Service is short of six staff. That leaves 26 nurses to provide crucial community-based nursing such as complex wound care, intravenous medication management, cancer treatment support and palliative care.
"Being short-staffed means we have to ration care. We can’t see everyone when we need to and have to rush the appointments of those we can get to."
Lesley Pook says without district nursing services, many more patients would need hospital-based care, putting further pressure on already stretched wards and emergency departments.
Meanwhile, nurses from two other regions go on strike next week to stop redeployment to other areas of their respective hospitals in order to fill staffing gaps caused by chronic shortages.
Cardiothoracic and Vascular Intensive Care Unit (CVICU) nurses at Auckland City Hospital and their colleagues from Ward 4 (Acute Surgical Services) at Whangarei Hospital undertake a "redeployment strike" 7am on Monday 18 August to 7am Saturday 23 August. This will enable these nurses to stay in their wards with their patients with CVICU patients in particular being very vulnerable.
NZNO Ward 4 delegate Chantelle Thompson says the strike involves NZNO members remaining at their places of work, leaving only for genuine Life Preserving Services, and focusing on the critically ill patients for whom they are trained to care.
"Nurses are currently sent to other areas that are short-staffed when required, but this often results in their own areas becoming understaffed. They are also sometimes seeing patients outside their areas with no orientation and are often unfamiliar with these patients.
"As the health system stands, it does nothing to enforce safe staff-to-patient ratios. This strike is about safe staffing and putting patient safety first," Chantelle Thompson says.
Photo and interview opportunity: North Shore district nurses will be outside North Shore District Nursing Services at 9 Karaka, Takapuna at 7.30am on Monday 18 August wearing their T-shirts.