Christchurch emergency department (ED) delegate Kez Jones says it is clear members are saying no to additional shift requests for next week’s roster.
NZNO has advised members to boycott additional shifts for the week of October 3-9 in protest over short-staffing and a lack of consultation over incentive payments.
Jones said Christchurch ED should have 112 FTE nursing staff but had just 101. The department relied on existing staff picking up additional shifts and a casual pool to fill the gaps.
Of 560 individual ED shifts required to be filled over the week of October 3-9, there were 96 shifts left unfilled — or 17 per cent — when the roster was released a few weeks ago.
Since then, about 10 of the 96 shifts had been filled, Jones said.
“It’s obvious that staff are not picking up as much as what they may have done previously,”
This still left a significant staffing gap of over 15 per cent — without factoring in sick leave absences.
“It’s obvious that staff are not picking up as much as what they may have done previously,” Jones said.
The unit was planning to display staffing numbers each day in the ED waiting area, to let the public know how many staff were actually working on the shift.
Staff were nervous about how they would manage next week, but a majority were supportive of the action, Jones said.
“We want to support them so we have made sure their safety reporting is going to happen so they are backed — escalation pathways need to be put into place.”
Te Whatu Ora Canterbury warning
On Wednesday, Te Whatu Ora Canterbury warned residents Christchurch ED was under significant pressure and would be stretched into early next week.
Two of three urgent care practices in the city were forced to close to walk-in patients on Wednesday, as a result of high demand, very sick patients and a lack of staff, the media release said.
Hawke’s Bay Hospital renal unit nurse and delegate Noreen McCallum said there was overwhelming support for the action across the hospital but some nurses would opt out for different reasons.
McCallum said the staffing shortage was already a crisis in many parts of the hospital, and next week’s action could make it worse.
Dunedin Hospital ICU nurse and delegate Debbie Robinson said she was inspired to support the action of Whangārei ED nursing staff who have refused to do additional shifts in the department in protest against unsafe staffing.
“While everything happens well in my unit, I could see that’s not quite the case in many, many places because of staff shortages,” Robinson said.
This week Robinson’s team of 110-115 members in the unit have supported the week-long action from Monday . . .”we’ve got it all set in motion”.
She said she had been saying the unit had good staffing numbers, but this action showed that it didn’t — the unit was only well-covered due to the goodwill of staff working extra shifts.