Unions
Letter of support from the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union have sent a letter of support for NSW nurses and midwives engaging in strike action on the 15th of February 2022.
Dear NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association members,
We have been closely watching recent branch balloting over taking industrial action in support of safe workloads in the public sector and am sending you our support and solidarity from Queensland. This has culminated in the decision to take industrial action across the state on Tuesday 15 February, which coincides with the first parliamentary sitting week for the New South Wales parliament in 2022.
Whether you are gathering outside Parliament House in Sydney, at local rallies around the state or taking action in your workplace, members of the Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union (QNMU) are with you in spirit. We send you our support and solidarity.
It has taken great courage to take this action, but it is driven by passion and commitment and an over-riding concern for patient and staff safety.
As we know, nurses and midwives never take industrial action lightly. But more than two years into a pandemic, so many are now tipped over the edge, exhausted from the unrelenting workload demands and fed up with being disrespected and taken for granted. True valuing of the foundational care work that you do is demonstrated by respecting your clinical judgement about what is needed to keep patients and staff safe.
Your number one priority is the safety of both the people that you care for and your colleagues. Safe staffing through shift by shift ratios is what you are seeking, and your Queensland nursing and midwifery colleagues stand with you shoulder to shoulder in this quest. The need for ratios is obvious to us, and we are so frustrated that others cannot see what is so blindingly obvious.
We all know that if you do not have the safe floor of minimum staffing ratios, then when a crisis like the COVID pandemic comes along and demand explodes in the system then there is not a protective safety net upon which a safe response can be built. Put simply ratios save lives, and have this minimum safety has assisted us in meeting the latest Omicron response.
Ratios not only save lives, they save money. And we have the evidence to prove this.
Almost six years ago, Queensland became the fourth jurisdiction in the world to legislate minimum nurse-to-patient ratios in public hospital prescribed medical and surgical units. The ratios are our legislatively mandated floor, with our industrially mandated workloads management tool determining requirements above this minimum. Ratios have since been extended in the public sector to acute mental health services and state government nursing homes and we have a commitment to trial further extensions to other areas such as operating theatres, Offender Health Services and Emergency Departments.
You will hear from the naysayers who proclaim that we can’t afford ratios – they will cost too much. But we know the truth. An independent evaluation of the roll out of ratios in medical and surgical units showed that ratios not only save lives, they save money. In May last year, this research by Professors Linda Aiken and Matthew McHugh from the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues from the Queensland University of Technology was published in the prestigious international medical journal The Lancet.
This research found that the implementation of ratios in these sites had saved 145 lives and resulted in an estimated $81 million in savings through decreased adverse events and length of stay. Importantly, it is estimated that this dollar saving represented more than double the “return on investment” of the cost of employing the additional nursing staff required to meet the minimum ratios.
Yet, evidence alone, no matter how robust it is, will not achieve change. The Queensland evidence is just the latest of so many other prior research findings attesting to the need for ratios. We know what is required – we just need it to be done.
Collective action is required. And the courageous action you are taking today is shifting power to achieve the change necessary. Your actions are acknowledged and admired.
Nurses and midwives are tired of being seen as a cost on a balance sheet and instead need to be seen for what they are – an essential investment required to achieve quality health outcomes and ensure patient safety. We must shift the thinking from cost to value. We are worth it.
Your action is inspirational and we stand in solidarity with you in your current struggle. We continue our campaign to extend ratios to all settings, across all sectors. The struggle continues in Queensland and we will not rest until we see a universal care guarantee delivered via ratios.
Together, we can and must do this.
Keep up the great fight!
In solidarity,
Beth Mohle
QNMU Secretary
On behalf of QNMU members and QNMU Council