Wednesday, November 24, 2010

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! NURSES THREATEN ONGOING INDUSTRIAL ACTION STARTING 1ST DECEMBER.

4000 Nurses from all over NSW rallied in Homebush on 24th November 2010, and voted unanimously to take onging industrial action to give the people of NSW the Public Hospitals they deserve.

For the past eight years or so, NSW Health and the NSW government have reduced the number of nurses and midwives serving the Community in its public hospitals to ridiculous levels. In some places, one midwife assisting three women in Labour, in others, two nurses attempting to manage 15 bed Emergency wards, 30 bed medical surgical wards with only four nurses to tend the 30 patients. Patient's families having to hire private nurses to care for their loved ones in Public Hospitals. Patients even dying because of poor staffing.....

In Victoria, for the past ten years, there has been a MINIMUM NURSE TO PATIENT RATIO OF 1:4 IN ALL NSW PUBLIC HOSPITALS. If its good enough for Victorians, why isn't it good enough for the People of NSW?

Safe hospitals like those in Victoria are what the Nurses and Midwives are asking the NSW Government to provide the People of NSW. Nurses and midwives have been asking this for SEVEN MONTHS and the answer has continually been "NO". Instead, NSW Health and the NSW Government tried to buy shut the nurses off with a small pay rise provided they stopped demanding better hospitals for the people of NSW- and this time, the Nurses said "NO!" And when they said "NO!", both Carmel Tebbut and Deborah Piccone threatened the Nurses with legal action, yet the Nurses refused to be silent.

The Nurses of NSW are giving the NSW Government until Tuesday, 30th of November to make a serious offer to adequately staff your public hospitals with a MINIMUM NURSE TO PATIENT RATIO OF 1:4 IN ALL NSW PUBLIC HOSPITALS. If such an offer to make NSW Hospitals safe again for patients is not forthcoming, the Nurses themselves will make the hospitals safe again by closing non-urgent beds.

Studies have shown that the death rate for patients in hospitals increses 7% for EACH PATIENT ABOVE THE 1:4 NURSE-PATIENT RATIO. By slashing the numbers of staff in Hospitals, our government has shown how little it values our lives and the lives of our loved ones who are admitted to hospital.

This is not about pay rises, its about quality care for patients in NSW hospitals.

Show your support for safe nurse to patient ratios at www.one2four.com.au .




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