February 25, 2021

Member Stories

Credit is great, but we need cash

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Enrolled Nurse Brett Sutherland decries the government’s rhetoric towards nurses and midwives, that always seems to come without meaningful action.

The World Health Organization has designated 2021 as the Year of Health and Care Workers – an acknowledgement of the great work that the health workforce has done through the COVID-19 pandemic.

While that’s all well and good, it makes me wonder when the accolades will finally turn into real action, which actually improves the lives of health workers.

What material benefit does this recognition have on our professions? In the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, our professions faced a cruel wage cut and rampant understaffing, as well as being forced to fight for the necessary PPE required to do our jobs. Will this year bring more cuts, more freezes and more insults to workers who have literally put their lives on the line?

Governments have become experts at patronising rhetoric. Thanking nurses and midwives while attacking our professions and our conditions simply does not cut it.

The credit is welcome, but ultimately that doesn’t pay the bills.

Healthscope members are united

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CME Julie Goss shares her thoughts on being part of the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association’s bargaining team at Healthscope.

I was lucky enough to be asked to be part of the NSWNMA bargaining team for our new Healthscope Agreement.

The bargaining process was delayed due to COVID-19, but after a few months of stasis, Healthscope decided to take their revised EBA to their nurses and midwives for a vote.

It was important for us to get a NO vote, as Healthscope was offering us nothing. We needed to win so we could get back to bargaining and get Healthscope to LISTEN to our real needs.

Healthscope worked hard to promote their agreement by telling staff how lucky they were with their new wage rise, and as a bonus if we voted Yes, we would be back paid our 1 per cent to last July. They started with lovely posters showing public hospital wage tiers and our comparisons.

However, we were ready to fight back.

We spoke with our staff and asked how they were feeling. We explained that Healthscope had not been listening to our claims and concerns, including staffing issues, lack of meal breaks and the amount of overtime worked.

As the vote came to a head, hospital executives were telling staff that if they voted against the proposal, they would get nothing. However, we countered that a successful NO vote would give us more power and we would be going back to bargaining.

Our NO vote won! This was exciting and it showed Healthscope that we are a united team across all NSW hospitals. We proved that they needed to listen to their nurses and midwives, be more flexible and give us a safer, happier working environment.

Healthscope, let’s get back to bargaining so you can fix our issues!

Naomi Lavery: our December nurse of the month

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Angela Wright nominated her colleague Naomi Lavery as our December nurse of the month.

This human is one of the greatest nurses I have worked with. She started at my work as a GSO in the kitchen, became an AIN, EN and then a RN. She is now our care manager.

Naomi comes in on her days off just to hand out lunches or dinner. If we’re short staffed she is always on the team doing extra work to make sure the residents don’t go without. With all her knowledge she enjoys helping all the staff that are starting their nursing journeys but most of all she loves all the residents in her care and always makes her best efforts to make them happy, no matter what they are going through.

The government’s “little trinket” is insulting

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Debbie Ross, Branch Secretary of the Sydney Hospital, Sydney Eye Hospital branch, shares her thoughts on the NSW Government’s wages policy.

“The initial reaction from staff to the 0.3 per cent pay increase at our site is that they were gutted. They felt there was no respect for the work that had been done during COVID. The government announced the agreed 2.5 per cent increase wouldn’t be passed on even after the police commissioner was given a wage increase of $87,000.

“A lot of nursing staff are now their family’s only breadwinner after their spouse lost their job because of COVID, so they were relying on that 2.5 per cent to come through. It would have been a glimmer on the horizon.

“Now the government is telling us they will provide free tickets to frontline workers to attend the New Year’s Eve fireworks display. But there are staff who will have to work on New Year’s Eve, and others who won’t be interested in attending a function where social distancing can’t be guaranteed. It is about giving a little trinket. And it’s highly doubtful you’re going to make a trip if you are in a regional area.

“I’ve spent more money travelling to and from work during COVID. Instead of catching public transport to work, I am driving my car because I just don’t feel safe going on public transport now, when train carriages are very empty after hours.

“Early in the pandemic I also felt ostracised when I wore my uniform outside work, and lots of nurses who were wearing uniforms were being accosted.

“Some people weren’t wanting to tell people where they worked because of the anxiety in the community when the virus first hit.

“Our branch has organised a rally outside Parliament House and we did a radio interview. On 16 November, we attended a rally with public sector unions, to protest under the Tree of Knowledge in the Domain.

“Nurses were feeling really angry. There was a heightened feeling of a lack of respect for and acknowledgement of the work we’ve done; particularly fire fighters and health workers who lost their homes in the bushfires and still went in to look after people during the fires.

“At no stage did anyone say ‘We are not going to look after patients’.

“We still did it even though we were scared. Now we hear we are only going to get a 1.5 per cent increase in the future. It will affect our ability to pay off homes and save for retirement.

“At the end of the day, they had the money to pay the increase, but they chose not to. It’s an absolute slap in the face.”

Give honour where honour is due

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Suzie Melchior, branch Secretary of the Ballina Hospital Branch and RN in Emergency, writes of her thoughts on the NSW Government’s wages policy.

My first thought when I heard the rumours going around that they might not honour the opportunity for us to achieve a pay rise was that I felt insulted.

It’s not even about the pandemic; it is about the role we play in our communities and giving honour where honour is due. As Australians, we congratulate people and pat them on the back, and the only way the state government can do that is by honouring the pay increase to be in line with inflation and increased costs of living.

Right at the beginning when we heard that we would have to go to arbitration, I spoke to reporter Joanne Shoebridge on ABC North Coast Radio one morning, and the Northern Star made us their second-last front page spread before they finished. Back then, no-one had heard that nurses and teachers who had been through one of the most stressful years of their lives weren’t going to get a pay rise.

In the first six months of this year, there was a sense of uncertainty. 
My own husband had to go back to his first trade as a baker for four and a half months during the period when his regular employer reduced his days from five to three.

We’re just one example of many. I feel embarrassed talking about not getting a pay rise when people have lost all their income, and campaigning for a pay rise when I know there are local cafes and musicians who have had no income and had to line up in the job queue.

That is a situation I didn’t expect to be in, but our community supports one another, and I was making sure that I put my money where my mouth is as one of the first to line up at local cafes when they opened.

The farcical thing is that we are now going to get gift cards to spend $25 to go out. If the government just honoured the pay rise, they could start to talk about the impact they could have on the economy.

We are a huge tourist area around Ballina, Byron Bay and the North Coast. Even though COVID wasn’t an immediate threat for us, as far as having local cases, we’ve been as busy as we’ve ever been at the Ballina Hospital and in emergency.”

You need compassion to be a nurse. A premier, apparently, does not

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Enrolled Nurse Robyn Mason shares her disgust at Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s wage cuts against nurses and midwives.

Shame on you, Premier!

During this pandemic, nurses and other frontline workers have put their physical, mental and financial wellbeing on the line.

You pay lip service to us and thank us for our contribution, then reward us by cutting our promised wage rise, and freezing future wage rises.

You represent everything that is wrong with this country! It is the same old story: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Why don’t you and your fellow politicians take a pay cut and save the country some money?

You should climb down from your ivory tower and walk a mile in our shoes.

You wouldn’t last one day as a nurse. You don’t have the compassion and dedication that is needed.

You will never get my vote!