Health Minister John Hatzistergos doesn’t understand that unless he improves their working conditions, new nurse graduates will continue to leave the profession within two to three years, according to the NSW Liberal/Nationals.
“That is why his campaign to recruit school leavers into nursing will not solve the nursing workforce problems confronting NSW hospitals,” said Shadow Health Minister Jillian Skinner.
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“There are more than 98,000 registered and enrolled nurses in NSW. However only 36 per cent are choosing to work in public hospitals," she said.
“Many of the 60,000 highly trained and qualified, registered and enrolled nurses in NSW who chose not to work in the public health system identify poor working conditions as the reason.
“They talk about being run off their feet, of being afraid to speak out when they believe patients are not being properly cared for, of lacking support when they are new to the job and of the loss of promotional jobs.
“Warning bells should have rung for the Government during July when the Greater Southern, North Coast, Northern Sydney and Central Coast Area Health Services moved motions of no confidence in the health restructure introduced by Morris Iemma when he was Health Minister.
“The Labor Government’s restructure has axed senior nursing management jobs across the state.
“This is why the Liberal/Nationals nursing policy concentrates on creating a working environment that is conducive to retaining staff and restoring senior nursing management positions,” Mrs Skinner said.
“The 2008 million police, Bringing Nurses Back includes a commitment to:
• Improve nursing degree courses by ensuring a greater amount of time is spent in clinical practice in hospitals or other health settings and investigating the opportunities for accelerated degrees to be off-set by nursing internships ($28.3 million);
• Increase retraining opportunities for registered and enrolled nurses wishing to re-enter the workforce ($4 million)
• Appoint an extra 50 clinical nurse educators over our first term to enable recent nursing graduates to receive a greater degree of mentoring ($8.8 million)
• Provide funding for 500 more nurses in our first term of Government. The promise to fund an additional 500 nurse positions is a commitment above and on top of the existing 1,285 vacant full-time nursing positions (bringing the total to 1,800 positions) ($85.3 million);
• Establish an additional quarantined fund to enable individual hospitals to negotiate benefits to meet the particular needs of nurses at that workplace. ($81.4 million) and
• Give nurses more recognition and control by maintaining senior nursing management positions, ensuring they are underpinned by strong support positions; establishing Nursing Staff Councils to give nurses the same clout and direct access to the Minister as doctors' Medical Staff Councils; and ensuring nurse representation on each local hospital board.
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