As many of you may know, nurses and midwives at the Mater and St Vincent’s Private hospitals are currently in EA negotiations with St Vincent’s Hospital Australia (SVHA). We continue campaigning for safe nurse-to-patient ratios and fair pay. On International Nurses Day, both sites joined forces and stopped work to rally together for the very first time. Together, we renewed calls for SVHA management and CEO Chris Blake to adhere to our EA demands and agree to implement nurse-to-patient ratios and a fair pay rise that is in line with the rising cost of living.

I really want to paint a picture for you of what it is like for our members and for midwives here at the Mater. This is the reality of what midwives have to deal with and the current workloads SVHA management expects us to continue to put up with:

On a day shift, a midwife is looking after six mums, six babies, six partners. A total of 18 people.

On a night shift the ratio is seven mums, seven babies, seven partners. That’s 21 people to account for.

At the Mater, the acuity of the mothers we care for has increased exponentially, even prior to COVID-19.

For the mums in our care, we are seeing increasing cases of anxiety and depression. These are very real issues that all have to be dealt with in addition to providing obstetric care.

Our caesarean rate is very high, leading midwives to now look after surgical patients, many of whom have post-operative complications. This is all on top our workload of six to seven mothers and their babies.

Skill mix is an increasing issue for our team as we struggle to retain experienced staff. Our peers are burning out due to the workloads and many are reducing their hours as a consequence. Management’s response is to employ new grad nurses; however, this adds a layer of complexity given the need for closer supervision in the early stage of their career.

Team leaders are regularly having to take care of patients, ward assistant shifts are cancelled or not replaced when they are sick, and the list of non-nursing duties continues to grow as we face being stretched to breaking point.

The current workload is unsustainable. We are now in a crisis, and we are desperate for SVHA management to come to the table and negotiate to see staff-to-patient ratios delivered.

I know the challenges we experience here at the Mater are not isolated and the unstainable workloads, poor skill mix, lack of breaks and loss of experienced staff are all issues being felt by my colleagues over at St Vincent’s Private. That is why our show of solidarity on International Nurses Day was so important.

We urgently need to reform, to ensure we can care for our patients and look after each other at the same time. All we want to do is provide the high-quality care we were trained to do and have the appropriate conditions that enable us to do this safely. Why is SVHA not letting us do our job properly?

SVHA, it is time to come to the table and meet our fair requests before it is too late.

Deirdre Duggan, RN RM