The Association will work with the Australian Human Rights Commission and employers to combat racism in the health and aged care sectors.
Seventy per cent of nurses, midwives, AINs, and care workers believe racism exists in their workplace, a NSWNMA survey shows.
Of those survey respondents who identified as having a culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) and/or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background, 64 per cent said they had been a victim of racism.
The Standing Together Against Racism report recommends changes to polices, systems and training including bystander action education for all staff.
NSWNMA Assistant General Secretary Michael Whaites said key stakeholders including employers, regulators, and government have agreed to collaborate on improvements to racism education and reporting with the aim of creating safer workplaces.
“We hope that by working in collaboration with the AHRC, employers and government we can bring about meaningful change for both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and those from other racially marginalised communities by finding permanent and scalable solutions to mitigate racism in health and aged care workplaces,” he said.
Michael said racism represented “a genuine psychosocial risk for workers” that workers, employers and governments had a shared duty to address.
A total of 3289 members from public health, private hospitals and aged care took part in the survey.
It shows the main forms of racism were racial bias, stereotyping and gaslighting.
One in five respondents said they had been verbally abused or insulted, one third reported bullying, and 27 per cent complained of a lack of career opportunities.
More than a quarter of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander respondents reported feeling socially alienated at work.
Some said they had to hide their cultural background, while others said the Voice to Parliament campaign had made workplace racism worse.
Colleagues were cited as the main source of racist behaviour by 68 per cent of respondents. Managers were identified in 43 per cent of responses, with residents/patients pinpointed in 41 per cent of replies.
The survey found 88 per cent of nurses, midwives and carers who reported an incident of racism received no support, while 73 per cent did not report it to management at all due to a lack of confidence in the system.
Almost 60 per cent of survey respondents had witnessed racism in their workplace in the previous week.
However, only 16 per cent of those subject to racism reported that someone had stepped in to support them at the time.
Only 14 per cent of respondents said bystander education was made available at their workplace.
“It is alarming how many members said they didn’t receive support after reporting an incident, that their cases were poorly managed, ignored or trivialised,” Michael said.
“For some respondents that meant leaving their job, or their profession entirely, because of the lack of action to address racial abuse and discrimination.”
He added however that the report demonstrates the potential for well-supported bystander action including the widespread implementation of bystander education initiatives.
The AHRC’s Race Discrimination Commissioner and the Association are bringing the stakeholders together again in December to plan the next steps.
Growing migration brings a more diverse workforce
The Standing Together Against Racism report points out that Australia relies on nurses and midwives with overseas qualifications to plug workforce gaps.
In 2023–24, 16,622 international nurses and 351 international midwives entered the profession in Australia.
This represented a 48.6 per cent and 28.6 per cent increase respectively compared to the previous year.
There is a steady stream of new migrant workers due to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) scheme and the new Aged Care Industry Labour Agreement – initiatives that recognise overseas qualifications and offer increases in the number of eligible countries whose nurses can access streamlined registration pathways.
The report says Temporary Skilled Visas granted to UK and Irish health and aged care staff “have decreased to almost insignificant numbers, while visa holders from India, the Philippines and Nepal have commenced a resurgence in the last two years”.
“These figures show our health and aged care workforces are growing in diversity and this should inform employee support strategies going forward,” the report says.
Glass ceiling to career advancement
Together Against Racism report featured Zimbabwe- born nurse Loveness Tsitsi Mauwa, who spoke about a “glass ceiling” faced by non- white nurses.
Loveness told SBS News that when she started her first nursing job in a NSW hospital, a colleague told her there was a “template” for career success.
“She told me to progress, you have to be young, Caucasian and beautiful. And at that time, it didn’t make sense to me,” Loveness said.
But as she stayed in the sector for longer, she realised the template existed.
In the following decade, Loveness applied for various opportunities to progress her career, only to find she often didn’t make it to the final stage.
“I did put out some applications, and in one of the applications, I was promised I was going to get an opportunity, but that opportunity never came, but everyone else who had applied who met the criteria was able to progress,” she said.
Loveness said that in the 25 years she has lived in Australia, she has seen the workforce become more culturally diverse – but barriers still exist.
“I think the health system is happy if we [are] just working on the floor but not wanting to progress into management or senior roles, so that is where it becomes a challenge.”
