Sunnyside staff refuse to man wards alone

Press, 29 September 1979, Page 1

Sunnyside staff refuse to man wards alone

Psychiatric nurses al Sunnyside Hospital will refuse to man wards alone if their demands for extra staff are not met within two weeks.

More than 150 of the nurses made this decision at a stop-work meeting held yesterday afternoon to consider an offer from the North Canterbury Hospital Board of six additional staff. The issue stems from a recent attack on a nurse at Sunnyside by two intruders apparently in search of drugs. Concern was subsequently expressed by the Sunnyside sub-group of the Public Service Association about security precautions at the hospital. The sub-group approached the hospital board with an 11-point plan for improving security. Ten of the points, including such things as extra alarms, were

accepted. The eleventh, which asked that no nurse be required to supervise a ward alone at night, was rejected. The secretary of the sub-group (Mr T. A. Warr) said an additional 28 nurses were needed. The sub-group had decided to compromise and ask for only 13, but even this had been halved by the board. The offer had been rejected by the nurses and the meeting had agreed to withdraw the original compromise demand of 13 and push for the full complement necessary to ensure that no nurse had to supervise a ward alone at night. In the meantime nurses working alone in wards close to each other would

share the two wards between them but this would be discontinued after two weeks. Mr Warr conceded there was a shortage of psychiatric nurses but said not enough effort was being made to recruit more. “We are no different from traffic officers, who will not work alone at night, except that some of our members are 17-year-old girls who are being expected to work alone,” he said. The Chief executive of the hospital board (Mr R. O. C. Parker) said the board would consider the matter after it had received formal notice of the nurses’ intentions.