Nurses and midwives rally Armidale
Hear first hand accounts of nurses and midwives at Armidale hospital as they really for a 15 % pay increase and better working conditions
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Warren Isaac, I'm the secretary of the Armidale branch of the New South Wales Nurses
00:11and Midwives Association.
00:15I'm here because I've been nursing for 43 years and for the last 16 years I've basically
00:22been in a wage freeze.
00:25Me and my colleagues are on 2008 level wages and we're paying 2024 bills and we have colleagues
00:33in other states like Queensland, they're getting 15% more than us, 12-15% more than us and
00:40so they're attracting a lot of our new staff, our new graduates and there's no reason why
00:45new graduates should be paid more money in Queensland or why any of us should be paid
00:49more money in Queensland rather than New South Wales.
00:53There is a huge gender pay gap, male dominated professions tend to get paid a lot more and
01:01the nurses in New South Wales are really undervalued.
01:05The other matter is about safe mandated nurse patient ratios.
01:10Yes, the current Labor government has agreed to implement those ratios and they're being
01:14done very slowly but we're not going to be able to staff those ratios if we keep losing
01:20staff to other states.
01:21I've been nursing for 31 years and I currently work here as a registered nurse and my, I
01:29guess, impact that I see on our wage freeze is patient safety.
01:33So the amount of nurses that are having to work overtime, excessive overtime, not just
01:39one or two shifts a fortnight but excessive, excessive amounts of overtime, drains, brings
01:45about burnout and it therefore impacts on patient safety.
01:49So I guess we're rallying today here in Armidale to highlight the need for the government to
01:53look at giving us a pay rise.
01:54So some of our counterparts in Queensland can be paid $12,000 more a year than us here
02:00in New South Wales which is a substantial pay rise.
02:03They also have ratios in Queensland whereas we're still fighting to get ratios rolled
02:09out across New South Wales.
02:10I believe they've been rolled out in a couple of areas only.
02:14So nurses like myself can move across the border to Queensland and get a substantial
02:18pay rise and better working conditions.
02:20So that's what we're finding is happening for a lot of our nurses from New South Wales.
02:24So I think the rates of, you know, the rates at which we're losing nurses is one for a
02:296% back in 2010 to 11%.
02:32So that's quite substantial.
02:35Pay us properly!
02:36Pay us fair!
02:38Recognise how much we care!
02:41Pay us properly!
02:42Pay us fair!
02:44Recognise how much we care!
02:48I suppose we hope that the government will see us making some noise and appearance today
02:52and negotiate with our union on our pay claim.
02:55I believe there have been six or seven meetings with the Ministry of Health in relation to
02:59our pay claim.
03:00That is obviously a 15% pay rise in one year.
03:03But there are also other changes that we would like to come from that as well.
03:07So increasing to sick leave and things like that.
03:09Obviously we're at higher risk of being ill because we're caring for the ill in the hospital setting.
03:14You won't find that in an office necessarily.
03:17So there's a claim to increase our sick days to 20 days per year.
03:20So we would just hope that the government would listen to us and work with us to improve
03:24our conditions so we stop losing nurses across the borders.