Paul Goulter: NZ Nurses Organisation CEO on the 24 hour nursing strike

Nurses are fed up over chronic short-staffing, despite graduates seeking jobs.  

More than 30 thousand nurses and heath professionals will be off the job from 9am, withdrawing labour from all Health New Zealand services for the next 24 hours.  

Strikes are taking place in over 30 locations across the country, with thousands of procedures and appointments postponed. 

Nurses Organisation Chief Executive Paul Goulter told Mike Hosking Health NZ doesn't realise the risks its staff and patients are under. 

He says you need nurses for a safe health system, and we don't have that, so it's a political choice.  

Goulter says their pay gap needs to be improved by a matter of a few percent, and at the moment they don’t even come close to the cost of living. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Another day, another strike. This time the nurses have gone

(00:02):
thirty sixy out four twenty four hours. Paul Guilt is
the Nurses Organization Boston. He's with us, good morning, Good
morning mate. Do you get sick of strikes?

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, I say, of this striking, out of this issue issue. Really,
it's just gone on and on and let's just hope
we can finally get it sort of starffing. It's just
got to be dealt with.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
So is this staffing or is it pay.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's about staffing. The people are just absolutely fed up
at not being able to get enough staff on the wards.
And this has just gone on for years and I
think it's just come to a head.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Explain it to people who don't follow this. But there
are graduates who are complaining that they don't have guaranteed jobs.
How can we have graduates that don't have guaranteed jobs
and that you're telling me that we need more people.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Well, that's exactly the point that you've captured. It. It
comes down to funding in resourcing. They don't have the
funding to employ those graduates, and they don't have the
funding in our staff on the wards.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Okay, the nurses, this is the prime Minister's line nurses
seniors one hundred and twenty five thousand, commensurate with New
South Wales, which is way wealthier than us. Nurse is
doing okay at that end of the market anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
No, no, they're not. They wouldn't be going to Australia
if that was the case. The wages, of course were
pumped up by the pay equity deal a couple of
years ago, but we're still got a major ressue and
basically the offer on the table was going to take
them backwards.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
So how big a gap money wise have we got
between what you want and what they're offering.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Well, I don't think it's that big, but of course
you'd expect me to say that. We think it's a
matter of a few percent. We're arguing that at least
we should meet cost of living and at the moment
that doesn't go nearby?

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Okay? Do I mean? What's your advice to people who
have got no money, which we don't. We have no money.
Love to pay nurses a fortune, but we have no money.
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Well? It comes back to what are the fundamentals that
need to be funded? And I think the health system
is an absolute fundamental in any society, particularly in New Zealand,
and it just hasn't received enough money to futtle. We're
a paired in front of a Select committee last year
and they put a number on the table and they said,
this is how far fush, this is what we need,

(02:22):
and this is how far short we are to run
a good health system. And that GAP's never been made up.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
No, I get that. But where do you get your
money from? We have no money, less than no money.
Where would you get it from?

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, there is money where three hundred and sixty three
million I heard it's going to be saved and put
into the pockets of the tobacco industry.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
No, that's an offset from money they haven't paid. You'd
need people to smoke to pay the excise tax for
the government to get the money. Do you want people
to keep smoking to give you the money?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Now? Of course we don't because that just put sexistrain
on the hospitals exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
So there is no three sixty three So where do
you get the money from?

Speaker 2 (03:01):
The money has to be found and it goes to
one priority.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Where help me out where.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
A lot of the money has been spent on physical
infrastructure and we're saying that some of that should be
diverted into the social infrastructure.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
So like, don't build a need in hospital, give it
to the nurses.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
No, we're talking about roads and things like that.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Don't build roads, give it to the nurses.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Well, the issue is you absolutely need nurses for a
safe health system, and we don't have a safe health system.
So it's pretty fundamentally these are matters of choices, political choices,
and governments of any color have to face this, and
we think a fundamental of any society like ours is
to have a safe and well funded health system.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Appreciate time Paul Golter, who's with the nurses.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
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