DEAR News Of The Area,

AS an older person, like “Jack”, I am alright now – but I worry about the future hospital conditions that will face us all.

The standards of nursing we will receive in future years is important to everyone because NSW can’t keep the nurses they train.

There are a lot of nurses living in the Coffs Coast area and everyone knows one, so we should all know why nurses are striking and demonstrating.

After all, nurses consist of mums, dads, and their adult children.

They live amongst us and care for us in the hospital.

Historically, nurses have always been respected but treated as a “second-class profession” because it is largely female dominated.

We can no longer rely solely on ‘vocation’ or a wish to care as motives.

Nurses are not radicals, and their reasons for striking are many and varied.

Basically they are seeking fair pay along with parity, equality, and better patient ratios.

That is fair enough, and maybe we should pay attention to the difficulties and responsibilities of their jobs.

The future of regional NSW hospitals is one of huge staffing problems.

This is because so many nurses from the ‘baby boomer’ generation are retiring, and large numbers of new-grads are choosing to work in other States.

So who is going to look after the people of NSW as patient numbers increase?

The interstate drain of nurses has to be stopped now, and as a profession, NSW Health has to attract young people to nursing, and (critically), keep them in NSW.

To do this, conditions have to be made the most attractive in Australia.

Over the years, training requirements and job responsibilities have changed, but the pay and conditions for nurses do not recognise this.

What was historically a virtual apprenticeship training scheme is now a university degree or diploma level qualification.

It is no longer a world of ‘hospital corners and starched veils’, and nurses take high levels of responsibility for serious clinical care.

No wonder the nursing profession is up in arms – they can see that the nursing drain to interstate hospitals is affecting our area right now.

Let’s face it.

That should not happen.

The NSW education system trains nurses in our hospitals and they have no incentive to stay in NSW let alone the regions.

Nurses work in a physically and emotionally exhausting profession but have been receiving low pay and ever-increasing clinical demands.

It is not rocket science, basic parity, equality, and improved patient ratios are needed if patients are to be cared for properly in the future.

But where will the next generation of nurses come from?

Our kids can do a Certificate IV in Business and earn more “working-from-home” so we have to ask why anyone would logically choose extra study, inflexible shift work, and the clinical responsibilities of nursing?

What will entice students to choose nursing as their career path – and then stay and work in regional NSW?

The answer lies in pay and working conditions.

In Coffs Harbour the nurses at the CH Hospital have already been demonstrating, and now for the first time ever, Ramsay Health Care nurses at Baringa Private Hospital are striking as well.

NSW nurses are the lowest paid in Australia, and the Ramsay health nurses are paid even less; yet we have more and more patients.

The answer is clearly economic and the Government needs to act immediately rather than prevaricating and ‘negotiating’.

More nurses are needed everywhere in NSW and we are facing a catastrophic problem in health care.

We need more nurses in NSW hospitals.

The pay and conditions of NSW nurses must be improved.

The nursing drain must be stopped.

Regards,
David EDWARDS,
Mullaway.