Al Dietschin: New Zealand Nurses Organisation delegate on Health NZ reviewing hospital visiting hours expansion

Relief from the nurses union over Health New Zealand's decision to review a hospital visitor hours expansion. 

The agency was intending to introduce a policy allowing nominated family members to support patients in hospital 24/7, outside visiting hours.

It will now review this following feedback. 

Healthcare Assistant and Nurses Organisation delegate Al Dietschin says there are no restrictive policies around family support currently. 

"While it's good to have family support, we shouldn't be doing it at the expense of a shortage of HCAs."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It looks like we've got a back down already on

(00:01):
the hospital visiting ours. The plan was to allow twenty
four to seven visiting hours for a designated family member.
This caused outrage and so this afternoon Health New Zealand
has released a statement saying that following feedback, they will
review the plan. Ol Diachin from the New Zealand Nurses
Organization is with us. Hey, al hi, do you welcome
this review?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I do.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
You know, like I just wanted to make it clear
anyway that ENDED is not opposed to obviously find our
patients centered care. And you know there's aspects of the
policy that are very positive, positive, but you know there
are some major concerns that we did have.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
What were your concerns?

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, I guess that the main concern is safe staffing.
There has been a precedent and there seems to be
a creep when it comes to what's called patient watchers,
when healthcare assistants who are members of ENDED in O
care for patients on a close observation process. And the

(01:08):
due to the chronic short stuffing of eight c's due
to you know, successive governments under funding of health, it
means that with these patient watches. There are times when
family members are kind of encouraged to help out, and
you know, our concern is that, you know, if the

(01:28):
issue is around helping with a patient that's that's needing
a patient watch, that needs eightcas that are trained to
be doing that and not expecting the family to do
it for free.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Well, is what they had planned to do, which is
to allow one designated person to be there twenty four
seven if they want to. Is that all that different
from what they do at the.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Moment, No, it's not. You know, currently there's no you know,
super restrictive policy. I don't think, you know, like in
a lot of places, there's always the opportunity for a
family member to stay with the patient and you know,
to to to support them, and that's welcomed. I mean,
we we think that's a great thing. But again it's

(02:11):
it's the main concern was that you know, with patient watchers,
and this is where there's there's a close observation by
a healthcare assistant with the patient who might have a
delirium or has dementia, and it's it's essentially to keep
them safe to a system with toileting and with feeding
and to stop them from interrupting therapies like pulling on

(02:34):
catheters or ov lines and and that kind of things,
and preventing fall. So it's really about having trained h
c as available to to care for patients that require
this service. And so, you know, while it's good to
have family support, we we shouldn't be doing it at
the expense of you know, basically a shortage of.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
H c as. Al. Thanks very much, appreciate it. I'm L. D. Christian,
delegate of the Insidno. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news Talks it B from four pm weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.