October 10, 2024 • 15 mins
Surgical nurse Diane Lang has spent many shifts on the frontline, and here's why she believes our Far South Coast nurses deserve better pay, better conditions and lower staff-patient ratios.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Why are fast South Coast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Then we also need good paying conditions, so you need
to have people who are paid well for the job
they do. We all have a bachelor of education, many
of them have a master's, a lot of them have
a postcrad. Yet we get paid less than an electrician
or a plumber. Sometimes, yes, their job is also important,
but we are looking after lives today.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm James Fantasy. Great to have you with us in
this episode where taking a look at the very noble
profession of nursing. They say nursing is a bit like
a calling, and to be a nurse these days, it's
so much more than just having a caring demeanor. Many
nurses and midwives have qualifications that could rival a medical degree,
and with our hospital stretched to the limit, the nursing
(00:44):
fraternity is the frontline barometer of any patient's experience if
they find themselves in ear or in a hospital bed.
Our guest today has spent many hours on that front line.
Her name is Diane Lang. She's a registered nurse and
union delegate from Bigga's Southeast Regional Hospital. You may have
heard of Diane. She's the voice for our far South
(01:05):
Coast nurses and midwives. She's front and center and the
campaign for better staff to patient ratios, for better paying conditions,
and for Diane, it's simply about fairness. Firstly, Diane, can
you just tell us where you were born? You do
still have a bit of a lingering accent. Tell us
where you were born and how you came to be
in Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I was born in California and raised there, and
I met an Australian at a ski resort in New Mexico.
Had overstaid is visa and we had to leave. So
I thought, why not is Australia? Where is it? Do
you guys speak English? And I came here in nineteen
seventy six.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What about your nursing journey? Tell us about when that
started and why did you want to be a nurse?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It was something I never thought I would be. When
I was forty, I was waitressing and I hated it.
My husband suddenly died and I thought, what am I
going to do? I don't want to be a waitress
at the age of forty, two weeks before my birthday.
So I got a job working as an age care
nurse in Pambula and I absolutely loved it. So that's
(02:09):
where I thought I would stay. But after ten years
it's physically hard work. Pay isn't very good. So somebody
conned me into doing a university degree at the Will
and going university in bigger and lo and behold, I'm
still here.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So what was that about two thousand and nine twenty
ten when you started?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I graduated in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
How has nursing and the industry changed from when you
first started back then to now?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oh, it's changed quite a lot. I worked as a
age care nurse, so for the first ten years, the
pace started really low. It was eleven dollars and that's
probably what got me active in the union, is because
it was eleven dollars an hour nineteen ninety eighties, I
think is when I started. When I left in two
thousand and nine, it was eighteen dollars, a big pay increase.
(02:56):
But in that time we had the year Rights at
Work campaign because they were going to try and take
rights away. So that's how I became a union activist.
And then I moved into the hospital system, and it
also was still poorly staffed, poorly funded, and we had
the ratios campaign and that's been on for about fifteen
years and finally the government has semi promised us it.
(03:20):
They have not delivered it, but they've given it as
a campaign promise when they got elected.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, and we'll get onto that soon. But first tell
us some of the highs and lows of the job,
and in particular what you've experienced and what you've seen
working as a nurse and also for the midwives along
the far South coast.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Let me go the first one. I work on a
surgical award, and I absolutely love the pace of somebody
comes from the theater. They come to us after a
hip joiner, a near joint replacement, and within a week
they're mobilizing and walking, and their pain is different pre
the operation to post so that they can move and walk,
(04:01):
and I love seeing that journey. I like helping them
make sure that they have the right education, the right
support to get a successful outcome from the surgery. And
I like making sure that anybody that comes in and
works with our orthopedic nurses and the surgical ward actually
have a good understanding that we need to see the
(04:21):
person first and then the patient's second. And that's probably
been the biggest change in the nursing that I've seen
is that we've gone away from seeing a person to
seeing a computer and seeing all the tick sheets that
we have to do. Computers have changed everything, so now
we have to put a lot of information into the
computers to make sure that we've done everything. Whereas before
(04:43):
it was just done. You saw it. Our worklot has
changed and it's shifted, and it's hard to explain simply,
but the worklot has gone from being showering personal care
to all the tick sheets and documentation making sure they
have everything done. So I don't have time. Sometimes people
don't have time to do the personal care as adequately
(05:05):
as we should.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Is that one of the because we're talking about the
highs and lows of the job, so you mentioned with
the highs, you know, seeing someone you know being able
to walk again or move again. So is that one
of the lows of the job that you've found that
has kind of crept in more of the admin's stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
There's more admin, there's more documentation, there's more accountability. We've
always had the accountability when you've already done the job,
and now you have to show that you've done the job.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
The accountability thing is a good thing, though, right from
a patient's point of view, like outside looking in, you
want nurses and hospitals to be accountable.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You want them to be accountable, but sometimes it's a
tick sheet, like you have to fill out a FOLES
form and ticked sheet, and that's what they're happy about. They'
happy to have that sheet ticked. But if you haven't
got enough staff on the floor, the person can sell fall,
but you've recognized that they have a files risk. You
put in place the things that they say you need
(06:00):
put in so that's where the accountability goes. But when
you haven't got enough staff to actually watch that person,
support that person, and then when the person has a fall,
you feel like you've failed, but the system has failed
because it just hasn't been enough people there physically to
do the support that person needs. Yes, we're accountable for
our actions, but the way they make it is as
(06:20):
long as you covered the documentation, we don't care if
you haven't got enough staff to do it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So you're saying there's too much emphasis on the documentation
and the advent side, whereas there should be more emphasis
on the result.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
On the result, there should be more people on the
floor so that you have the ability when you have
somebody as a false risk, you have the ability to
have somebody close by so they do try and get
out of the bed, you can actually stop them before
they do, Whereas you can document that you've done everything right,
but you don't have those eyes. And that's what's important
in nursing. It's the actual seeing and doing, not so
(06:52):
much the writing in documenting.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
More soon from long time began nurse and union advocate
Diane Lang, giving us a glimpse into some of the
front strations that are working in the wards of any
hospital or care center. As the world becomes more litigious
and accountability sometimes overrides caring. I art far South Coast.
(07:17):
I art far South Coast. Hey there, I'm James Fannasee.
More now of our conversation with Diane Lang, a surgical
nurse at Southeast Regional Hospital and a union delegate who's
been fighting for a pay rise for all nurses and
midwives across the state. Diane's been a registered nurse in
Bega since around two thousand and nine, and her union
(07:37):
activism also began around that time. She never had wild
dreams of union leadership back then. Actually, it was the
chance to take a free trip to Sydney that led
Diane to find her union mojo, but she soon discovered
she could lend her voice to represent colleagues who were
simply becoming overwhelmed and often exhausted by the high demands
of their work.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
The very first time I went to a meeting, I
actually spoke about something and it was just so empowering,
and I realized that you do need to have a
group of people behind you to make any changes. So
that's why I got.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Involved speaking on those changes. Nurses and midwives in New
South Wales have had a bit going on lately, two
lots of industrial action taking place across the state. Just
last month nurses and midwives calling for a fifteen percent
pay increase. What's the latest on negotiations with the state
government and where are things at.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, we just foughted to halt any industrial action for
four weeks while we have intense negotiations with the Ministry
of Health and people that actually have control of the finances,
because previous to that, a lot of our conversations were
people who really couldn't control the budget, and we decided
we'll have four weeks of intense negotiation. I think they're
(08:53):
going to have some consultation with the ministry and work
out how the plan will be and then we'll go
forward and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Is a major one. What are the other things that
nurciss and wives are calling for.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Well, we'd like to have two consecutive days off, so
we're like to be entitled two weekends every week. That
is a no cost thing. However, the government still thinks
that that is a very difficult thing to manage. So
you may be guaranteed two days off in one pay period,
which is a month, but you may not get two
days off every week. And you know most other people
have a weekend. We would like a weekend. We're asking
(09:27):
for a thirty percent night shift penalties because working night
shifts is quite judgmental to your health. In a long term,
we would like twenty six days instead of ten. And
I think the few of the things that are small
things that we may not get to, but least those
are the major requests.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
How bad is it? I mean, you're living it every
day along with your colleagues in terms of paying conditions.
What are some of the effects that you're seeing from
your colleagues that you know has driven this call for change.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I'm very lucky because I'm at the end of
my working career, so i don't have the pressures that
they have of a mortgage and trying to make ends meet.
But nowadays, with the mortgages as they are, you know,
a lot of times one way just goes straight to
the mortgage. So the cost of living is extremely stressful.
So people are usually picking up extra shifts, doing a
(10:22):
double shift if there's availability, to try and get the
little bit of extra money in to make ends meet,
and it's struggling. Also, we have a high turnover at
the moment because everyone seems to be leaving to move
to a state that offers better paying conditions Queensland. If
you're living on Lismore in the border town, a lot
(10:43):
of people live in Lismore and they go across the
border to work because eight dollars an hour is a
big difference. Same with Victoria Aubrey Wodonga area. A lot
of our members could go to canber and earn a
little bit better as well. So we need to try
and retain and keep the existing nurses because that also
gives you a comfortable war to work in when you
know that you've got workmates that you've been there with
(11:04):
five years, six years, and you can actually work well
as a team. But when that team continuously changes and
moves because people leaving, makes it very difficult.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And what are staffing levels looking like here on the
Far South Coast in terms of Bateman's Bay, Maria and
Southeast Regional Hospitals.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, most of the places are funded for a specific
number of beds, but often we're working over those bed numbers,
so then we have to try and find staff to
fill in the gaps. They say, we have enough staff,
but you still have quite a few phone calls staff needed,
emergency urgent. Can you fill in this vacancy? So there
always techs out going. We need more staff. So they
(11:43):
might say we have a full time equivalent, but when
you look at the messages of help needed, staff wanted,
doesn't look like that.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And Diane, you've been in the industry a long time,
as you say, it probably affects more so the future
nurses coming through as well as the current ones working there.
But what would you like to see the future hold
for nurses and midwives here on the Far South Coast.
What's firstly a good result with the negotiations and then
just overall, what would you like to see happen.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, first of I'd like to see our ratios introduced
across all hospitals, every single hospital across New South Wales.
It's been slowly introduced now to level five and level
six emergency departments and there's only been two. They've just
announced ten more. But if we had good ratios in
good working conditions in every ward that's one. Then we
also need good paying conditions, So you need to have
(12:33):
people who are paid well for the job they do.
We all have a bachelor of education, many of them
have a master's, a lot of them have a post grad.
Yet we get paid less than an electrician or a
plumber sometimes yes, so job is also important, but we
are looking after lives. So a good pay in good
working conditions and I think then you would have a
(12:56):
much more relaxed environment, you'd have much more staff staying
on to work book, and you would actually have a
much more cohesive unit because people are willing to stay
because they're paid and respected for that job that we do.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
So you think that money is a real determining factor
in whether people stay or go. Given the cost of
living pressures that most are feeling right now.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I think money and ratios between the two of them.
Good working conditions and yes, money. Too many people are leaving.
You just have to look and see. They're either leaving
the system completely, they're going to NDIS because they pay better,
or they're moving. As soon as they they have the
ability for their partner to get another job somewhere else,
they'll leave. We have too much of a turnover at
(13:39):
the moment. It's a very pressurized place to work when
you haven't got the right staffing tools and you haven't
got staffing numbers and you haven't got good pay.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
At the time of publishing this podcast, New South Wales
Health has agreed to pay nurses a three percent wage
increase to temporarily halt their industrial action and the nurses
union has access did a recommendation from the Industrial Relations
commission His New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
It's a starting point and we said all along that
we were keen to meet and exceed the recommendations of
the Industrial Relations Commissioner. That's what we've done. Both parties
have agreed to that. That means four weeks of intense
negotiations and then if we can't get it resolved, which
I'm hoping we can, it'll move into an arbitration model.
(14:26):
But during that time, importantly, nurses and midwives will be
paid that three percent. It'll be backdated from one July
and there won't be further industrial action whilst this process
is underway. So that's a pleasing outcome for all concerned.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I'd say Minister Park has acknowledged the issue of pay
for nurses and midwives is not resolved.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
What the nurses will understand and midwives understand though the
government's also invested significantly over a billion dollars over the
next few years to roll out ratios. That was a
big ass for the Nurses and Midwives Association in the
lead up to the last election. We understand pays important.
That's why we we are committed to remain at the
table and negotiate in good faith and that's what we'll
go through.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
That's all for now. On iHeart Far South Coast, proudly
supported by the new South Wales Government. I'm James Fantasy Katcher.
Next time, I heart Far South Coast
Why are fast South Coast.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Then we also need good paying conditions, so you need
to have people who are paid well for the job
they do. We all have a bachelor of education, many
of them have a master's, a lot of them have
a postcrad. Yet we get paid less than an electrician
or a plumber. Sometimes, yes, their job is also important,
but we are looking after lives today.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm James Fantasy. Great to have you with us in
this episode where taking a look at the very noble
profession of nursing. They say nursing is a bit like
a calling, and to be a nurse these days, it's
so much more than just having a caring demeanor. Many
nurses and midwives have qualifications that could rival a medical degree,
and with our hospital stretched to the limit, the nursing
(00:44):
fraternity is the frontline barometer of any patient's experience if
they find themselves in ear or in a hospital bed.
Our guest today has spent many hours on that front line.
Her name is Diane Lang. She's a registered nurse and
union delegate from Bigga's Southeast Regional Hospital. You may have
heard of Diane. She's the voice for our far South
(01:05):
Coast nurses and midwives. She's front and center and the
campaign for better staff to patient ratios, for better paying conditions,
and for Diane, it's simply about fairness. Firstly, Diane, can
you just tell us where you were born? You do
still have a bit of a lingering accent. Tell us
where you were born and how you came to be
in Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, I was born in California and raised there, and
I met an Australian at a ski resort in New Mexico.
Had overstaid is visa and we had to leave. So
I thought, why not is Australia? Where is it? Do
you guys speak English? And I came here in nineteen
seventy six.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
What about your nursing journey? Tell us about when that
started and why did you want to be a nurse?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
It was something I never thought I would be. When
I was forty, I was waitressing and I hated it.
My husband suddenly died and I thought, what am I
going to do? I don't want to be a waitress
at the age of forty, two weeks before my birthday.
So I got a job working as an age care
nurse in Pambula and I absolutely loved it. So that's
(02:09):
where I thought I would stay. But after ten years
it's physically hard work. Pay isn't very good. So somebody
conned me into doing a university degree at the Will
and going university in bigger and lo and behold, I'm
still here.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
So what was that about two thousand and nine twenty
ten when you started?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I graduated in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
How has nursing and the industry changed from when you
first started back then to now?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oh, it's changed quite a lot. I worked as a
age care nurse, so for the first ten years, the
pace started really low. It was eleven dollars and that's
probably what got me active in the union, is because
it was eleven dollars an hour nineteen ninety eighties, I
think is when I started. When I left in two
thousand and nine, it was eighteen dollars, a big pay increase.
(02:56):
But in that time we had the year Rights at
Work campaign because they were going to try and take
rights away. So that's how I became a union activist.
And then I moved into the hospital system, and it
also was still poorly staffed, poorly funded, and we had
the ratios campaign and that's been on for about fifteen
years and finally the government has semi promised us it.
(03:20):
They have not delivered it, but they've given it as
a campaign promise when they got elected.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, and we'll get onto that soon. But first tell
us some of the highs and lows of the job,
and in particular what you've experienced and what you've seen
working as a nurse and also for the midwives along
the far South coast.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Let me go the first one. I work on a
surgical award, and I absolutely love the pace of somebody
comes from the theater. They come to us after a
hip joiner, a near joint replacement, and within a week
they're mobilizing and walking, and their pain is different pre
the operation to post so that they can move and walk,
(04:01):
and I love seeing that journey. I like helping them
make sure that they have the right education, the right
support to get a successful outcome from the surgery. And
I like making sure that anybody that comes in and
works with our orthopedic nurses and the surgical ward actually
have a good understanding that we need to see the
(04:21):
person first and then the patient's second. And that's probably
been the biggest change in the nursing that I've seen
is that we've gone away from seeing a person to
seeing a computer and seeing all the tick sheets that
we have to do. Computers have changed everything, so now
we have to put a lot of information into the
computers to make sure that we've done everything. Whereas before
(04:43):
it was just done. You saw it. Our worklot has
changed and it's shifted, and it's hard to explain simply,
but the worklot has gone from being showering personal care
to all the tick sheets and documentation making sure they
have everything done. So I don't have time. Sometimes people
don't have time to do the personal care as adequately
(05:05):
as we should.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Is that one of the because we're talking about the
highs and lows of the job, so you mentioned with
the highs, you know, seeing someone you know being able
to walk again or move again. So is that one
of the lows of the job that you've found that
has kind of crept in more of the admin's stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
There's more admin, there's more documentation, there's more accountability. We've
always had the accountability when you've already done the job,
and now you have to show that you've done the job.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
The accountability thing is a good thing, though, right from
a patient's point of view, like outside looking in, you
want nurses and hospitals to be accountable.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
You want them to be accountable, but sometimes it's a
tick sheet, like you have to fill out a FOLES
form and ticked sheet, and that's what they're happy about. They'
happy to have that sheet ticked. But if you haven't
got enough staff on the floor, the person can sell fall,
but you've recognized that they have a files risk. You
put in place the things that they say you need
(06:00):
put in so that's where the accountability goes. But when
you haven't got enough staff to actually watch that person,
support that person, and then when the person has a fall,
you feel like you've failed, but the system has failed
because it just hasn't been enough people there physically to
do the support that person needs. Yes, we're accountable for
our actions, but the way they make it is as
(06:20):
long as you covered the documentation, we don't care if
you haven't got enough staff to do it.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
So you're saying there's too much emphasis on the documentation
and the advent side, whereas there should be more emphasis
on the result.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
On the result, there should be more people on the
floor so that you have the ability when you have
somebody as a false risk, you have the ability to
have somebody close by so they do try and get
out of the bed, you can actually stop them before
they do, Whereas you can document that you've done everything right,
but you don't have those eyes. And that's what's important
in nursing. It's the actual seeing and doing, not so
(06:52):
much the writing in documenting.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
More soon from long time began nurse and union advocate
Diane Lang, giving us a glimpse into some of the
front strations that are working in the wards of any
hospital or care center. As the world becomes more litigious
and accountability sometimes overrides caring. I art far South Coast.
(07:17):
I art far South Coast. Hey there, I'm James Fannasee.
More now of our conversation with Diane Lang, a surgical
nurse at Southeast Regional Hospital and a union delegate who's
been fighting for a pay rise for all nurses and
midwives across the state. Diane's been a registered nurse in
Bega since around two thousand and nine, and her union
(07:37):
activism also began around that time. She never had wild
dreams of union leadership back then. Actually, it was the
chance to take a free trip to Sydney that led
Diane to find her union mojo, but she soon discovered
she could lend her voice to represent colleagues who were
simply becoming overwhelmed and often exhausted by the high demands
of their work.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
The very first time I went to a meeting, I
actually spoke about something and it was just so empowering,
and I realized that you do need to have a
group of people behind you to make any changes. So
that's why I got.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Involved speaking on those changes. Nurses and midwives in New
South Wales have had a bit going on lately, two
lots of industrial action taking place across the state. Just
last month nurses and midwives calling for a fifteen percent
pay increase. What's the latest on negotiations with the state
government and where are things at.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, we just foughted to halt any industrial action for
four weeks while we have intense negotiations with the Ministry
of Health and people that actually have control of the finances,
because previous to that, a lot of our conversations were
people who really couldn't control the budget, and we decided
we'll have four weeks of intense negotiation. I think they're
(08:53):
going to have some consultation with the ministry and work
out how the plan will be and then we'll go
forward and see what happens.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Is a major one. What are the other things that
nurciss and wives are calling for.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
Well, we'd like to have two consecutive days off, so
we're like to be entitled two weekends every week. That
is a no cost thing. However, the government still thinks
that that is a very difficult thing to manage. So
you may be guaranteed two days off in one pay period,
which is a month, but you may not get two
days off every week. And you know most other people
have a weekend. We would like a weekend. We're asking
(09:27):
for a thirty percent night shift penalties because working night
shifts is quite judgmental to your health. In a long term,
we would like twenty six days instead of ten. And
I think the few of the things that are small
things that we may not get to, but least those
are the major requests.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
How bad is it? I mean, you're living it every
day along with your colleagues in terms of paying conditions.
What are some of the effects that you're seeing from
your colleagues that you know has driven this call for change.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Well, I'm very lucky because I'm at the end of
my working career, so i don't have the pressures that
they have of a mortgage and trying to make ends meet.
But nowadays, with the mortgages as they are, you know,
a lot of times one way just goes straight to
the mortgage. So the cost of living is extremely stressful.
So people are usually picking up extra shifts, doing a
(10:22):
double shift if there's availability, to try and get the
little bit of extra money in to make ends meet,
and it's struggling. Also, we have a high turnover at
the moment because everyone seems to be leaving to move
to a state that offers better paying conditions Queensland. If
you're living on Lismore in the border town, a lot
(10:43):
of people live in Lismore and they go across the
border to work because eight dollars an hour is a
big difference. Same with Victoria Aubrey Wodonga area. A lot
of our members could go to canber and earn a
little bit better as well. So we need to try
and retain and keep the existing nurses because that also
gives you a comfortable war to work in when you
know that you've got workmates that you've been there with
(11:04):
five years, six years, and you can actually work well
as a team. But when that team continuously changes and
moves because people leaving, makes it very difficult.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
And what are staffing levels looking like here on the
Far South Coast in terms of Bateman's Bay, Maria and
Southeast Regional Hospitals.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, most of the places are funded for a specific
number of beds, but often we're working over those bed numbers,
so then we have to try and find staff to
fill in the gaps. They say, we have enough staff,
but you still have quite a few phone calls staff needed,
emergency urgent. Can you fill in this vacancy? So there
always techs out going. We need more staff. So they
(11:43):
might say we have a full time equivalent, but when
you look at the messages of help needed, staff wanted,
doesn't look like that.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
And Diane, you've been in the industry a long time,
as you say, it probably affects more so the future
nurses coming through as well as the current ones working there.
But what would you like to see the future hold
for nurses and midwives here on the Far South Coast.
What's firstly a good result with the negotiations and then
just overall, what would you like to see happen.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, first of I'd like to see our ratios introduced
across all hospitals, every single hospital across New South Wales.
It's been slowly introduced now to level five and level
six emergency departments and there's only been two. They've just
announced ten more. But if we had good ratios in
good working conditions in every ward that's one. Then we
also need good paying conditions, So you need to have
(12:33):
people who are paid well for the job they do.
We all have a bachelor of education, many of them
have a master's, a lot of them have a post grad.
Yet we get paid less than an electrician or a
plumber sometimes yes, so job is also important, but we
are looking after lives. So a good pay in good
working conditions and I think then you would have a
(12:56):
much more relaxed environment, you'd have much more staff staying
on to work book, and you would actually have a
much more cohesive unit because people are willing to stay
because they're paid and respected for that job that we do.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
So you think that money is a real determining factor
in whether people stay or go. Given the cost of
living pressures that most are feeling right now.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I think money and ratios between the two of them.
Good working conditions and yes, money. Too many people are leaving.
You just have to look and see. They're either leaving
the system completely, they're going to NDIS because they pay better,
or they're moving. As soon as they they have the
ability for their partner to get another job somewhere else,
they'll leave. We have too much of a turnover at
(13:39):
the moment. It's a very pressurized place to work when
you haven't got the right staffing tools and you haven't
got staffing numbers and you haven't got good pay.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
At the time of publishing this podcast, New South Wales
Health has agreed to pay nurses a three percent wage
increase to temporarily halt their industrial action and the nurses
union has access did a recommendation from the Industrial Relations
commission His New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
It's a starting point and we said all along that
we were keen to meet and exceed the recommendations of
the Industrial Relations Commissioner. That's what we've done. Both parties
have agreed to that. That means four weeks of intense
negotiations and then if we can't get it resolved, which
I'm hoping we can, it'll move into an arbitration model.
(14:26):
But during that time, importantly, nurses and midwives will be
paid that three percent. It'll be backdated from one July
and there won't be further industrial action whilst this process
is underway. So that's a pleasing outcome for all concerned.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
I'd say Minister Park has acknowledged the issue of pay
for nurses and midwives is not resolved.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
What the nurses will understand and midwives understand though the
government's also invested significantly over a billion dollars over the
next few years to roll out ratios. That was a
big ass for the Nurses and Midwives Association in the
lead up to the last election. We understand pays important.
That's why we we are committed to remain at the
table and negotiate in good faith and that's what we'll
go through.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
That's all for now. On iHeart Far South Coast, proudly
supported by the new South Wales Government. I'm James Fantasy Katcher.
Next time, I heart Far South Coast
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