Health and safety concerns arising from unsafe staffing levels have forced nurses at Gisborne Hospital’s emergency department (ED) to go on strike.
Around 34 Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO members will down tools for an hour from 2.30pm to 3.30pm on Wednesday (9 September).
NZNO delegate and ED nurse Clara Dolman-Tuhou says Gisborne ED has been understaffed since the end of last year and ongoing meetings with management have brought no significant change despite the ED going into code red multiple times.
"Unsafe staffing has significantly increased since then," she says.
"This is because of severe staff shortages and unreasonable and unmanageable workloads that have made the ED critically unsafe, and led to increased sick leave, burn out and resignations.
"We’re at the point now where staff have had enough."
Clara Dolman-Tuhou says unsafe staffing puts patients, health workers and the community at risk every day.
"Sustained understaffing and overcrowding in emergency departments could lead to more serious situations like patient deaths and violence against staff by frustrated people waiting longer than they should in ED."
She says it’s a privilege caring for people when they are at their most vulnerable, and she’s proud of her mahi. However, immense work pressure comes at a cost.
"For me, that cost is my whānau and, most importantly, my child.
"The mental strain, exhaustion and anxiety that my colleagues and I are experiencing is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
"Health care workers cannot continually be expected to absorb the consequences of short staffing, increasing presentations and limited hospital capacity by simply working more hours.
"We cannot keep asking exhausted staff to carry an already overloaded system because eventually, something has to give."
Gisborne ED staff were also bewildered by an email (seen by NZNO) from management on 9 July that the department was undergoing a staffing rollback which would have reduced nursing staff from 14 to 13 across the three shifts rostered each day.
This was paused following pressure from NZNO.