Government joins bid to end nurse crisis

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

The Government is joining efforts to end Auckland's chronic nursing shortage, after 15 years of studious non-intervention in industrial issues.

It has been coaxed into a trial partnership with health unions and the region's three district health boards in a search for solutions to problems such as recruitment and retention, heavy workloads and uneven post-graduate education opportunities for nurses.

Finance Minister Michael Cullen, Health Minister Annette King, Labour Minister Margaret Wilson and State Services Minister Trevor Mallard are scrubbing up for the operation.

An official from Ms King's office is representing them on a steering group, which held its first meeting last week.

Also on the group are the Nurses' Organisation, which instigated the project, and the Public Service Association as a representative of health workers such as psychiatric nurses.

Auckland has a regional shortage of almost 300 nurses. There is growing concern at a heavy reliance on junior nurses and overseas recruits to plug the gaps.

The project is being hailed as one which could help to put teeth into long-awaited recommendations of a national health workforce advisory committee, which has only just submitted its first report to Ms King.

Steering group members met as fear mounts of industrial disruption spreading to Auckland nurses, who are negotiating for a multi-employer pay deal across the region's three health boards.

Negotiators have sparred for four months against the backdrop of a predicted regional budget deficit of more than $100 million, including the Auckland District Health Board's $72 million blowout.

A pay claim of about 10 per cent, which has been suggested by one industry source but not confirmed by the negotiating parties, would add $15 million to the region's nursing salary bill.

But those involved in the working party insist it will remain above the melee of pay talks and that it was conceived long before 3500 Christchurch health workers went on strike for 48 hours in December.

They also deny any plan to ensnare the Government in day-to-day industrial relations, ending the hands-off era introduced in the 1980s under Labour Minister Stan Rodger.

Longer-term pay issues are on the agenda, but listed as only one ingredient in a mix of issues including ways of easing the nurses' work burden and making their careers more rewarding through improvements to post-graduate training.

Waitemata District Health Board chief executive Dr Dwayne Crombie said market forces and years of governments "washing their hands" of workplace issues had not provided New Zealand with the health workforce it needed.

It was logical to start the reconstruction effort with nurses, as they were "at the heart of the health system".

Nurses' Organisation northern manager James Ritchie said better pay and workload controls may stem the loss of nurses in the short-term, but the country faced a systemic problem which demanded a long-term plan.

nzherald.co.nz/hospitals