About 34 NZNO members walked out of the ED waiting room, flanked and clapped on by ED doctors and other supporters at 2.30pm today — launching a one-hour health and safety strike.
Emergency nurses Karen MacDonald and her daughter Camille Collier were among those walking off the job into a 200-strong crowd. Supporting them was MacDonald’s 91-year-old mother, Alison MacDonald, a former nurse and delegate at Te Puia Hospital, and Collier’s daughter, Eden Collier, who works with her mum and grandmother on ED reception.
‘It’s crazy, and we’re just so exhausted. But we do it because we can’t leave our colleagues and we can’t leave the patients.’
“It’s really really supportive — it’s quite exciting,” MacDonald told Kaitiaki, who said she initially felt a bit scared.
“Then we saw everyone on the side of the road when we came out — it was actually really empowering for us, having all that support.”
Despite being of retirement age, MacDonald said she was working 92 hours a fortnight just to cover the roster.
“It’s crazy, and we’re just so exhausted. But we do it because we can’t leave our colleagues and we can’t leave the patients.”
‘We’ve had dump trucks with our slogans, we’ve got fire engines, we’ve got horses, we’ve got dogs.’
Four generations join the picket line
MacDonald said it was very special having four generations together on strike, all in health: “My grand-daughter said nursing isn’t for her, but she’s in reception.”
MacDonald said the ED nurses also appreciated the support of doctors and colleagues, who clapped them out as well as joining the picket lines.
“The doctors are all out here in force — our senior doctors — and a lot of traffic, because it’s school time,” she told Kaitiaki, almost drowned out by tooting.
“We’ve had dump trucks with our slogans, we’ve got fire engines, we’ve got horses, we’ve got dogs,” she said.
Also on the picket line was NZNO delegate and Gisborne ED nurse Clara Dolman-Tuhou, who said the members were pumped for the strike — with preparations underway for days.
“It’s been a long time coming, and all the hype that we’ve got and the support that we’ve got, not just from the media but the community as well.”
She said members were hyped for the strike — “some banners have been made and some purple tutus have been purchased” — and the weather had even done its part, switching from rain the previous day to sunshine.
Gisborne Hospital ED nurses are clapped out by doctors and colleagues with a guard of honour as they walked off the job today for an hour's health & safety strike.
‘Rollercoaster’ workload
The workload in the previous few weeks had been a rollercoaster, Dolman-Tuhou said. “Definitely in the weekends we’re feeling it. I think we had about six nurses on this Sunday just gone that did 12-hour shifts throughout that 24 hour period.”
‘It was actually really empowering for us, having all that support.’
At other times the workload was not as chaotic — but even then there was “still a good flow of people” coming through the doors.
“I guess we’re getting used to the environment in there, so that when we actually have maybe what some would call a normal day, it’s actually quite nice and relaxing for us.”
Previously in a heartfelt personal article published in Kaitiaki, Dolman-Tuhou revealed she worked 30 hours over her contracted full-time equivalent (FTE) hours in the last fortnight alone.
Health system ‘in crisis’
The night before the strike, third-generation health worker, Gisborne intensive care nurse Olivia Anderson, told an NZNO election hui in the city it was getting harder to be a nurse “when the very system you work for shows how uncaring it can be”.
Anderson described a patient who had nearly lost their life because they couldn’t get a GP appointment. Eventually, they presented to Gisborne Hospital with severe sepsis that meant a lengthy stay and multiple interventions.
“Not only did this patient have to suffer a long hospital stay, the admission compounded already severe understaffing and under-resourcing within our hospital,” Anderson told politicians who had turned up from several parties — except National.
She said privatising health was not the answer to “timely, universal” health care for everyone in the community.
See Olivia Anderson’s video describing how nurses try to care in an ‘uncaring system’.