Nurses want board to visit them

Press, 15 July 1980, Page 6

Nurses want board to visit them

Nurses at The Princess Margaret Hospital want members of the North Canterbury Hospital Board to visit the hospital and hear for themselves the staffing problems which the nurses believe seriously affect patient care.

A meeting of 88 nurses yesterday with the southern regional officer for the Nurses’ Association, (Mrs Edna Thomas) unanimously called for a closer personal interest in the hospital’s problems by board members.

"As far as they have been able to ascertain, no member of the board has even bothered to visit the hospital and get a first-hand account. It is not something which has suddenly flared up but a matter of concern for many many months. This is certainly the feeling from the meeting,” Mrs Thomas said.

The Nurses’ Association refused to accept continuing nursing shortages, Mrs Thomas said.

Junior nurses were being forced to do duties, because of staff shortages, which were the province of more senior experienced staff.

Often senior nurses on afternoon and night duty had to forgo meal breaks rather than leave junior nurses in charge of wards, she said.

“Nurses are saying loudly and clearly that they cannot continue with the present situation which is posing a threat to the proper care of patients:” Staff shortages' had beep

outlined to the nursing administration but the nursing representatives had been told that nothing could be done because money was short and the “sinking lid” policy applied, Mrs Thomas said. “This is serious and the hospital board has- got to give account of how it arrives at staffing numbers.” She said she would ask board officers, after she had met nursing representatives at Christchurch Hospital today, how the board justified its staffing numbers. . “Nurses want to know in the interests of patient care why the board has an establishment of nurses, yet seems unable to find the money to employ them. Is this merely a mythical figure?” Mrs Thomas said that very clear indications of the pressure on nursing staff were clouded because until recently a lot of nurses had worked overtime without claiming from the board. "In this way the board may have got a much rosier impression than was justified.”. The board’s annual report showed that the actual qualified nursing staff in all its hospitals, for 1979-80 was

1186. This compared with an establishment nursing staff for the same period of 1301, leaving it 116 qualified nurses short.

The establishment for 1980-81 is 1521, 335 qualified nurses short.

The board’s chief executive (Mr R. I. Parker) said yesterday that “establishment” numbers were only an ideal figure and the board always worked below these. In other words, this was the number the board would like to have if it had the money to employ them. An analysis of nursing numbers by the board's Principal Nurse (Miss Brenda Branklin) would help to establish where pressure from varying workloads was being shown among nurses, Mr Parker said. Mr D. Wills, director of the Nurses’ Society, which also represents many nurses in hospitals run by the board, said from Auckland last evening that the society was well aware of staffing shortages in hospitals in Christchurch.

“It would be a very shortsighted policy for the North Canterbury' Hospital Board to impose budgetary considerations on staff numbers.” lie said. '