BY KAMALA EMANUELÌý
HOBART — Four hundred nurses rallied on the Parliament House lawns on May 25 to protest the failure of the state Labor government to live up to an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) under which all nurses with post-graduate qualifications were to have received a 4% allowance.
Rally chairperson, Australian Nurses Federation (ANF) state president Lorraine Bailey, explained how post-graduate courses in specialty areas (such as midwifery and emergency care) had been gradually moved from hospital-based to university-based courses over the last three years. This was achieved after extensive lobbying by nurses.
However, nurses who obtained their qualifications in hospital-based courses are not receiving recognition of these qualifications in the form of the 4% post-graduate certificate allowance. This is inconsistent with the position taken by the Nursing Board of Tasmania, the regulatory body for all nurses, which clearly states that qualifications attained in hospital-based courses are to be treated equally to equivalent qualifications achieved in university-based courses.
ANF state secretary Neroli Ellis told the rally: “We are making a stand for the community... Unsafe staffing levels mean we can't provide the care that we want to.”
Ellis explained that there were 1300 fewer nurses in Tasmania now than there were 10 years ago. Those who are left were facing “burn out” from a regular double shifts. However, when nurses took minimal industrial action in recent weeks, holding a series of stop-work meetings, the government responded by cutting off negotiations with the ANF.
Ellis told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that nurses were not intimidated by government stone-walling, and were planning more action in the coming weeks.
Other speakers at the rally were Katherine McCarr, of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian College of Midwives, Leanne McDougall, nursing organiser for the Health and Community Services Union, state Liberal leader Bob Cheek, Greens parliamentarian Peg Putt, and Dr Tony Bell, director of critical care unit of the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH).
Solidarity messages were sent from the Australian Medical Association, Dr Brian Walpole, formerly the director of emergency care at the RHH, and the ANF's Victorian branch.
Though the rally was specifically about pay injustice, most speakers — with the notable exception of Cheek — complained of the chronic understaffing in Tasmania's public hospital system that is endangering people's lives.
There have been rumours of patients dying in hospital for lack of adequate nursing observation. Despite a $9 million surplus in the recently released state budget, there have been no significant steps taken by the government to ameliorate this situation.
[Kamala Emanuel is the Socialist Alliance candidate for the state seat of Bass.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, June 5, 2002.
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