Nursing reports

NZNO’s Ōtautahi/Canterbury members will join local leaders and politicians to talk about the dire state of their local hospitals and the public health system at a hui on Thursday.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) will be supported by their Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) and E tū colleagues at the event to raise public awareness and place further pressure on the Government to increase funding for health.

Included among the evening's speakers is long-serving and long-suffering enrolled nurse Debbie Handisides who says the Government needs to immediately plug the sinking ship that is health care.

"I’m concerned for patient safety, and their health outcomes due to the shortage of doctors, general practitioners, nurses, physios, occupational therapists, pharmacists, midwives and surgeons.

"Our patients are getting delayed health care with longer wait times to see GPs so they report to hospitals more unwell."

Like virtually every part of the country, Ōtautahi is struggling with under-resourcing and understaffing, and our communities are all feeling the impact, she says.

"Every sector of the health system is crumbling around health workers’ ears. The Government is not providing adequate funding for safe staffing, and they are disguising their frontline hiring freeze.

"Every day, health workers are burning themselves out while compensating for the Government’s refusal to fund a safe and effective health system.

"Patients are at serious risk of harm and are even dying on waiting lists. This is not good enough and we demand action."

Other speakers include Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland, Councillor and mayoral candidate Sara Templeton, an ASMS spokesperson, Spinal Trust National Programme manager Andrew Hall, and a nursing student representative.

Interview and photo opportunities available

WHEN: Wednesday, 15 May 2025

TIME: 5.30pm-7pm

WHERE: Aldersgate Centre, 309 Durham Street North, Christchurch

Community members are welcome.

NZNO’s Ōtautahi/Canterbury members will join local leaders and politicians to talk about the dire state of their local hospitals and the public health system at a hui on Thursday.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) will be supported by their Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) and E tū colleagues at the event to raise public awareness and place further pressure on the Government to increase funding for health.

Included among the evening's speakers is long-serving and long-suffering enrolled nurse Debbie Handisides who says the Government needs to immediately plug the sinking ship that is health care.

"I’m concerned for patient safety, and their health outcomes due to the shortage of doctors, general practitioners, nurses, physios, occupational therapists, pharmacists, midwives and surgeons.

"Our patients are getting delayed health care with longer wait times to see GPs so they report to hospitals more unwell."

Like virtually every part of the country, Ōtautahi is struggling with under-resourcing and understaffing, and our communities are all feeling the impact, she says.

"Every sector of the health system is crumbling around health workers’ ears. The Government is not providing adequate funding for safe staffing, and they are disguising their frontline hiring freeze.

"Every day, health workers are burning themselves out while compensating for the Government’s refusal to fund a safe and effective health system.

"Patients are at serious risk of harm and are even dying on waiting lists. This is not good enough and we demand action."

Other speakers include Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland, Councillor and mayoral candidate Sara Templeton, an ASMS spokesperson, Spinal Trust National Programme manager Andrew Hall, and a nursing student representative.

Interview and photo opportunities available

WHEN: Wednesday, 15 May 2025

TIME: 5.30pm-7pm

WHERE: Aldersgate Centre, 309 Durham Street North, Christchurch

Community members are welcome.

NZNO’s Ōtautahi/Canterbury members will join local leaders and politicians to talk about the dire state of their local hospitals and the public health system at a hui on Thursday.

New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) will be supported by their Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) and E tū colleagues at the event to raise public awareness and place further pressure on the Government to increase funding for health.

Included among the evening's speakers is long-serving and long-suffering enrolled nurse Debbie Handisides who says the Government needs to immediately plug the sinking ship that is health care.

"I’m concerned for patient safety, and their health outcomes due to the shortage of doctors, general practitioners, nurses, physios, occupational therapists, pharmacists, midwives and surgeons.

"Our patients are getting delayed health care with longer wait times to see GPs so they report to hospitals more unwell."

Like virtually every part of the country, Ōtautahi is struggling with under-resourcing and understaffing, and our communities are all feeling the impact, she says.

"Every sector of the health system is crumbling around health workers’ ears. The Government is not providing adequate funding for safe staffing, and they are disguising their frontline hiring freeze.

"Every day, health workers are burning themselves out while compensating for the Government’s refusal to fund a safe and effective health system.

"Patients are at serious risk of harm and are even dying on waiting lists. This is not good enough and we demand action."

Other speakers include Patient Voice Aotearoa's Malcolm Mulholland, Councillor and mayoral candidate Sara Templeton, an ASMS spokesperson, Spinal Trust National Programme manager Andrew Hall, and a nursing student representative.

Interview and photo opportunities available

WHEN: Wednesday, 15 May 2025

TIME: 5.30pm-7pm

WHERE: Aldersgate Centre, 309 Durham Street North, Christchurch

Community members are welcome.

This year’s Hospice Awareness Week comes as hospices struggle to keep their doors open because of a lack of Government funding and nurses’ chances of fair pay shattered by the removal of their pay equity claim, NZNO says.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) hospice pay equity claim was filed in late-2023 covering 27 hospices employing its members. That claim, alongside nine others for NZNO, were thrown out by the Government last week with its to pay equity law changes.

Hospice New Zealand today said Te Whatu Ora had refused to adjust their funding so hospice nurses and health care assistants could be paid the same as their hospital counterparts. Hospices could not afford to fund the widening pay gap as at least 35% of hospice nurses’ wages came from fundraising and donations because of chronic underfunding of the sector.

NZNO delegate and hospice nurse Donna Burnett says hospice nurses are demoralised and angered by last week’s announcement.

"Hospices are already facing service cutbacks, with a strong possibility of closures in small region because of the current lack of funding. It is not sustainable. On top of this, at the swipe of a pen and a blink of an eye, Government pulled pay equity out from under us."

Due to New Zealand’s aging population, the crisis for hospices will only worsen if the Government doesn’t step up and properly fund the sector, she says.

"We are meant to be raising awareness about hospices this week, but the reality is people need to be aware of what’s happening to us nurses and health care assistants because it impacts our patients.

"Without pay equity and a fully funded sector, hospices will keep losing nurses and health care assistants to better paying hospitals or overseas health systems.

"Dying New Zealanders and their whānau have enough to worry about without not being able to access hospice care because of short staffing which is a direct result of Government decisions," Donna Burnett says.

Changes by the Government to make pay equity claims harder to lodge and resolve are an attack on women, New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) says.

Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke Van Velden today announced changes saying they will "significantly reduce costs to the Crown".

NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says nurses will be outraged that historical gender discrimination will not be addressed so the Government can save money.

"This is a blatant and shameful attack on women.

"Women in workforces predominantly performed by female employees have been underpaid and undervalued for generations. That is what pay equity claims seek to rectify.

"This move by the Government will widen the pay gap between men and women," Paul Goulter says.

NZNO has at least 10 pay equity claims being progressed across branches of the health sector including Aged Care, Primary Health Care, Hospices, Plunket, Community Health and Laboratories covering many nurse and support worker roles.

Paul Goulter says some of these claims have been going on for years.

"Our members will be devastated that after years of waiting for settlements, the Government is now pulling the rug out from under their feet.

"This move is particularly unfair to primary health and aged care nurses who are being denied the opportunity to close the pay gap with their hospital counterparts. Our Plunket and hospice members now face the injustice of having to redo their pay equity claims," Paul Goulter says.

Te Toka Tumai Auckland Te Whatu Ora theatre nurses will strike for two hours tomorrow over attempts by Health New Zealand not to pay them appropriately for involuntary overtime.

The 370 perioperative (which includes preoperative, theatre and postoperative) nurses are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki O Aotearoa (NZNO) working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Hospital.

NZNO delegate and perioperative nurse Alissa Baker says nurses are standing up against involuntary overtime. This stand is part of the current collective agreement bargaining between NZNO and Te Whatu Ora.

"Nurses should be paid appropriately for the work we are doing, and that does not include forced overtime as the Te Whatu Ora proposal seeks to enforce," Alissa Baker says.

NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says it is appropriate the perioperative nurses are striking on May Day.

"May Day is a day for workers and unions around the world to celebrate workers’ rights and the union movement. It is timely that our perioperative nurses are making a stand for fair pay on May Day.

"The Government continues to chronically under-resource health, is increasing the privatisation of health services and fails to address the crisis in primary and aged residential care. This is another insult to other nurses and health care workers around the country.

"This year NZNO members will join their fellow union members around the country at Fight Back for Health and Fight Back Together events," Paul Goulter says.

Editor notes:

- Striking perioperative nurses will join senior doctors and cross-union members for the May Day Fight Back for Heath event outside the front of Auckland City Hospital from 9am to 1pm tomorrow (Thursday 1 May)

- NZNO perioperative members from Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike between 9am-11am.

- NZNO perioperative members working in Post Anaesthesia Care Units on level 4, 8 and 9 at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike between 11.30am-1.30pm.

- Information about Fight Back for Health events can be found here

- Information about Fight Back Together can be found here

Avoidable harm caused to patients both in New Zealand and in the United Kingdom shows the introduction of physician associates is a risk to patient safety, New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) says.

Health Minister Simeon Brown has announced that physician associates will be regulated as a new profession in New Zealand.

NZNO President Anne Daniels says the introduction of the new, overseas trained workforce, leaves patients vulnerable to misdiagnoses or worse. Similar concerns have also been raised by the Resident Doctors’ Association.

"Here in New Zealand there have been concerns physician associates have failed to take a patient’s blood pressure, leading to a brain bleed and loss of vision.

"In the United Kingdom where physician associates have been part of the health sector for the past 20 years, there has been a litany of issues including the misdiagnosis of an aggressive breast cancer resulting in the death of a young mother, opiates illegally prescribed, failure to detect a deadly pulmonary embolism and a drain left in a patient’s abdomen."

Anne Daniels says nurses are focused on providing the safe, high-quality and culturally appropriate care New Zealanders expect and deserve.

"The introduction of physician associates is an unnecessary quick and cheap fix to the doctor shortage when we have a competent and experienced nurse practitioner workforce available to do this work. The Minister must immediately stop the introduction and regulation of physician associates here," she says. 

Te Toka Tumai Auckland Te Whatu Ora nurses who are members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki O Aotearoa (NZNO) are striking over attempts by Health New Zealand not to pay them for involuntary overtime.

About 370 perioperative (which includes preoperative, theatre and postoperative) nurses working at Auckland City Hospital, Starship Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre will strike for two hours on 1 May.

NZNO chief executive Paul Goulter says the perioperative nurses have been doing involuntary and unpaid overtime for years because they put their patients first.

“They are fed up with their goodwill being taken advantage of. They have sacrificed enough and want recognition for the years of work they have done.

“Te Whatu Ora has now raised a last minute claim in collective agreement negotiations which can only be seen as a shameful attempt to avoid paying these nurses appropriate compensation for working past their shifts to help patients having operations,” Paul Goulter says.

More than 200 people are expected to make a chain around Nelson Hospital on Saturday, to demand a new hospital immediately and enough staff to care for the community.

Nelson residents will go hand-in-hand with unions New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO), Public Service Association (PSA) and Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS) to further highlight the hospital’s troubles including understaffing, structural deficiencies and even pest-related woes.

NZNO delegate Amanda Field says the Government’s failure to adequately fund healthcare means management of Nelson Hospital is being forced to make difficult decisions that hurt both patients and staff.

"Cutting back on workers and prioritising the budget and targets not only raises health and safety risks for the treatment of vulnerable patients and exhausted staff but also leaves the building maintenance underfunded. Every staff member who works in healthcare has the patient at the centre of their work. As soon as the focus is on targets and budgets the patient journey becomes secondary.

"We are appealing to the Government for more funding, employing appropriate staffing numbers and a specific commitment to building the new hospital."

Field says local communities are feeling frustrated and worried that 23 years after a new hospital was promised there’s still no sign of one.

"People of Nelson are really motivated. Hands around the hospital is an opportunity for the community to come together and show their concern and support.

They are speaking out about their experiences. They are frustrated they have been made to wait since 2002, and waitlists are impacting on the health of patients and healthcare workers’ wellbeing.

"Health and safety of patients and staff is paramount. Doctors and nurses are speaking out because they are primarily concerned about the health of this community, which are all a part of."

Hands around the Nelson Hospital starts at 12 noon outside Hospital Main Entrance on Tipahi Street.

"The chain will be on the footpath on the roadside around the hospital and not on the hospital grounds, so there’s no risk of impacting services," Field says.

"We urge anyone who can make it to join us."

Police withdrawal from mental health call outs should be stopped until Te Whatu Ora makes critical resources available, the New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) says.

Phase Two of the changes come into effect on Monday (14 April) but police have delayed the starting date in all but five districts, saying other areas are not ready. The new phased roll out is the second time police have rescheduled the changes.

NZNO Mental Health College chair Helen Garrick says the health sector is not ready for the police withdrawal either.

“This is a matter of safety for everyone, including the people who need mental health support, their whānau and the mental health workforce.”

The first phase of the changes officially came into effect last November, but Helen Garrick says NZNO mental health nurses report the police withdrawal actually started long before that.

NZNO agrees with the Mental Health Foundation there is no adequate plan to support the transition away from police attending mental health call outs, she says.

“The police withdrawal should be stopped until the following resources and agreements are in place:

1. Resourcing for new crisis hubs to be staffed by a qualified mental health workforce 24/7.
2. Purpose built safe spaces attached to hospitals or community centres, staffed 24/7 and suitable for people experiencing mental distress, and their whānau, to wait for mental health assessment. Emergency Department waiting rooms are completely unsuitable.

3. Resourcing for nationwide co-response teams – consisting of a minimum of a mental health nurse and police officer – to transport people under the Mental Health Act.
4. Increased staff for mental health crisis teams and a commitment to workforce development and filling current vacancies, without the creation of an associate psychologist qualification.
5. Leaving decisions about mental health risk and the need for police assistance in the hands of mental health staff, not police communications.”
    

"The people have spoken, and it is a big fat no to that bill," says New Zealand Nurses Organisation Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa (NZNO) Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku.

Parliament's Justice Committee has released its report into the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill and has recommended it does not proceed.

"The call to scrap the bill is common sense and to show the nation it is listening, this Coalition Government should do away with it right now," Nuku says.

In January, Nuku with chief executive Paul Goulter, delivered a submission on the bill to the select committee.

"As advocates for more than 60,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare workers, we argued that if those principles were removed or tampered with, it would cost more lives starting with Māori lives."

The bill was the most submitted on proposed law in the history of this country, opposed by 90% of the 300,000 submitters.

Nuku also said the coalition should see the opposition to this bill as a warning for other similar legislation it had in the pipeline.

"They also need to save the nation, Parliament and themselves another headache, or walk to nowhere, and scrap another planned bill [Regulatory Standards Bill] which not only undermines the Treaty but puts our already struggling health workforce at risk."

Later this month, Nuku and other representatives from NZNO will head to the United Nations in New York to request that a special rapporteur travel to Aotearoa to investigate the series of attacks by the Government on Māori health.

"Even if these anti-Treaty bills are scrapped, there are still other attacks happening on Māori health, so we still intend to ask the UN to do what they can to help us. If the UN can’t stop these attacks, then at least they can let the world know what’s happening to Māori," Nuku says.