Nurses and midwives throughout NSW have been coming together to kick off our campaign for improved and extended ratios and a fair pay rise in our Public Health System.
Prince of Wales Hospital started their the campaign with a launch meeting on 19 April. Nathaniel Mitchell told The Lamp: “We are going to be organising an area contingent to march in the May Day rally. We want ratios to be defined really clearly, and to be part of NSW health policy so they can’t be taken away. Over time we’ve been expected to do more and more with the same staff.
“At POW workloads are increasing without increased staffing to match. And we’re also seeing RNs and ENs being replaced with AINs. I used to work in our rehabilitation ward, and the ratios there are one to five during the day, but the biggest issue they have there is if someone calls in sick they would replace an RN or an EN with an AIN. That would leave the nurses with a ratio of one to ten in practice.”
Members of our Macquarie Mental Health branch in the North Sydney LHD pledge to fight for safe staffing in mental health units during our 2018 campaign.
NSWNMA members from Liverpool Hospital were joined by Paul Lynch, the state MP for Liverpool and Charishma Kaliyanda, a Liverpool City Councillor, to express their support for our ratios campaign.
Brian Grant, Liverpool Hospital Branch President, told The Lamp: “The Liverpool emergency department is probably the second busiest in the state and they are employing ratios of one to four in the subacute area and they really should be at one to three. The other area that is a problem is the maternity unit which counts mothers and their babies as one patient. But the Liverpool maternity unit is a level five unit and takes complicated births. There is a general shortage of experienced midwives too.”
Babies should be counted in staffing
Maternity services need staffing ratios that apply to babies as well as mothers, says Stephanie Austin, a midwife at a northern Sydney hospital.
“We can’t give good midwifery care with staffing the way it is,” she says.
“We are badly understaffed. Midwives are working under extreme pressure and some have resigned as a result.
“Ratios should be guaranteed in black and white, not the grey area that applies under the Birthrate Plus® system, which doesn’t reflect the acuity of the women and babies we are seeing.
“My ward is funded for 33 beds yet it often goes over census and it is common to have 36 to 38 mothers at any one time.”
Stephanie supports the union claim for newborns to be counted as patients for the purpose of determining staff numbers in postnatal wards.
“Increasingly, babies require at least as much care as mothers.
“Most babies are on regular observation and we have to write notes and fill out care plans for all babies daily.
“For example, we have jaundiced babies on bili beds, babies who need feeding support, babies on sepsis obs and others who need blood sugar levels monitored.
“Our midwives are caring for late-preterm newborns who require extra assistance with feeding, blood sugar levels and general observations.
“Babies like these are cared for in special-care nurseries in other hospitals.”
The union’s award claim also seeks to provide a better staff skill mix in maternity services, which Stephanie agrees is badly needed.
“Absent midwives are often replaced with RNs or AiNs, who are unable to take a patient load.
This amounts to an increased patient load for midwives.
“Student and transitional midwives on the maternity ward often feel overwhelmed with heavy patient loads. It’s unfair that they should be left feeing unsafe, especially because senior midwives don’t have the time to support them.
“Junior midwives have a high burnout rate; quite a few have left and others are looking at alternative employment options.”
She says midwives lack the time to properly educate new mothers.
“If midwives had the time to sit with women through a breastfeed and educate new parents on normal newborn behaviours we would have fewer patients being readmitted with issues around jaundice, weight loss and feeding.
“Readmissions end up costing the hospital more in the long run.”
For more information on our campaign
Visit the Ratios put Patient Safety First Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/safepatientcare/