Nurses ring in Mia to dramatise shortages

Jane O'Malley with Mia, who will appear in understaffed wards around the country. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Mia the cardboard cutout "nurse" began her career yesterday as a watchdog for nursing shortages.

Her full name is "Missing in Action" and she or copies of her are coming to a hospital near you.

Nurses Organisation members will put a Mia on display in a ward when the number of nurses falls below the number they consider safe.

"If they have got say four rather than five nurses they can prop Mia up at the entrance to the ward to say a nurse is missing," said the union's outgoing president, Jane O'Malley.

"It's consciousness-raising to the public and to managers, although most hospitals are aware of the issues," said Ms O'Malley, who was with Mia for her launch at the union's conference in Auckland.

Copies of Mia would be made and distributed to members at hospitals around the country.

Mia and buttons that members will wear with messages about the shortages are intended to focus attention on an inquiry into nurse and midwife workloads.

Public hospital nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants won 14 to 30 per cent pay rises in February.

They did not achieve their other objective of district health boards employing more nurses to provide what the union considers safe staffing levels. Instead the pay deal directed the creation of what the union calls the "safe-staffing inquiry", which is composed of union and board appointees and an independent chairwoman.

Ms O'Malley said her union "conservatively" estimated that public hospitals were short of 2000 nurses.

Staff shortages and consequently excessive workloads often left nurses feeling ashamed or frustrated that they were unable to give patients the level of care they needed, she said.

"They have had to cut corners. When you cut corners sometimes patients are at risk and so is the nurse's registration."

She said the inquiry was about "delivering sustainable, manageable workloads".

"It's the single most important issue to our members now pay equity has been achieved at district health boards."

A draft plan from the inquiry panel was being circulated to members and hospitals, she said.

It was a complex document designed to specify the number of nurses and their levels of experience or "skill mix".

The health boards' nursing spokesman, Tairawhiti board chief executive Jim Green, could not be contacted.

Health Minister Annette King's spokesman said she could not comment "because we are in a caretaker role".

The union's industrial adviser, Glenda Alexander, said the national employment agreement with the boards stated that if implementing the inquiry's recommendations were to require extra money "we would jointly approach the Government for the funding necessary".

The inquiry's recommendations are subject to ratification by a majority of the union's members and all board chief executives.

Nursing numbers

The Nurses Organisation last year called for compulsory patient-to-nurse ratios.

It wanted four patients per nurse in general wards, with three or two patients per nurse in emergency departments.

District health boards and the Health Ministry rejected the idea, preferring more flexible arrangements.

The Nurses Organisation and health boards are now engaged in an inquiry into nurse and midwife workloads.