Healthscope’s legal actions have not stopped NSWNMA members campaigning for fair pay and adequate staffing.

SWNMA members at Healthscope hospitals have taken further strike action in support of their claim for a new enterprise agreement.

Members at Newcastle Private Hospital were the first to walk out with a 26-hour strike that started on 20 March.

A rally by about 50 members outside the hospital drew enthusiastic support from passing motorists and was favourably covered by the local NBN TV News.

Other Healthscope hospitals were preparing to strike when this edition of The Lamp went to press.

Healthscope threatened to go to the Fair Work Commission to prevent the strike at Newcastle Private, as it did with earlier strike action planned in February.

The company later agreed not to go to the Commission after it reached an understanding with the NSWNMA over the staffing and operation of the birthing suite.

NSWNMA members voted by a 95 per cent majority to begin a campaign of protected action at Healthscope last year.

UNPRECEDENTED LEGAL ACTION

In March, the NSWNMA Healthscope campaign planning team agreed to continue legally protected industrial action after hospital reps canvassed the views of members at seven Healthscope hospitals.

They are Campbelltown Private, Lady Davidson Private, Nepean Private, Newcastle Private, Northern Beaches, Norwest Private and Sydney Southwest Private.

The campaign planning team comprises 10 hospital-based nurse and midwife representatives plus NSWNMA staff.

They have been trying to negotiate a new enterprise agreement with Healthscope since May 2024.

NSWNMA General Secretary Shaye Candish said members want Healthscope, Australia’s second largest private hospital operator, to appropriately value and recognise the essential work done by nurses and midwives and address unsafe working conditions they face every day.

“Instead of negotiating in good faith, Healthscope is throwing money at lawyers to find ways to stop our members from exercising their right to take industrial action,” Shaye said.

“Healthscope legal action against our members is unprecedented in the nursing and midwifery sector.”

NSWNMA FIGHTS PAY CUTS IN FWC

Healthscope members have held work stoppages of two and three hours followed by bans on some non-clinical tasks such as cleaning and data entry.

The company responded to the bans by imposing pay cuts of up to 30 per cent for affected shifts.

The NSWNMA was fighting the pay cuts in the Fair Work Commission when The Lamp went to press.

Shaye said the cuts were completely arbitrary and illogical.

“Some people not participating in bans had their pay cut. Some who engaged in partial bans were docked the same amount as others who fully implemented the bans,” she said.

“Healthscope also docked pay for imaginary ‘bans’ on tasks we never banned, such as stocktaking.

“In any case, the enterprise agreement says nurses and midwives should not be doing non-clinical duties on a regular basis.

“A pay cut of 30 per cent suggests that rather than doing occasional cleaning, our members are being required to do lots of cleaning on every shift.”

Shaye also pointed to Healthscope’s legal action – unprecedented in the health sector – that stopped members from taking protected industrial action in the form of a 26-hour strike in February.

“Healthscope is deeply in debt,” Shaye said. “It is battling with its staff, its landlords and private health insurers”.n

PETITION TO RECLAIM NORTHERN BEACHES HOSPITAL

The MP for the federal seat of Mackellar, Dr Sophie Scamps, has started a petition to get Healthscope’s Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) taken back into public ownership.

Healthscope is contracted to run Northern Beaches Hospital until 2038 under a public-private partnership deal with the NSW government.

The government awarded a contract to Healthscope to build, finance, operate and maintain NBH in 2014.

When NBH opened in 2018 it replaced two public hospitals – Manly and Mona Vale.

Dr Scamps, a former GP in the northern beaches area and emergency doctor, said nurses, doctors and allied health professionals had been “raising the alarm” for years about Healthscope’s management of the hospital under the public-private partnership.

She said, “ongoing and pervasive cuts to staffing numbers” had “compromised patient care”.

“Northern Beaches Hospital is a failed experiment and must be returned to public control,” she said.

“Public health and private profit-making are fundamentally incompatible. The people of the Northern Beaches deserve more than second-rate, cut-price care.

“NBH is the only remaining public-private health partnership in NSW.

“A 2020 NSW state parliamentary inquiry into the hospital recommended an end to future public-private hospital partnerships – acknowledging they do not work for patients or staff.

“A simple example is the hospital’s refusal to implement safe minimum nurse to patient ratios that are mandatory at all other public hospitals across the state.” The petition can be found at https://www.sophiescamps.com.au/time_to_take_our_hospital_back n