Nurses and midwives rally Armidale

The Armidale Express

Hear first hand accounts of nurses and midwives at Armidale hospital as they really for a 15 % pay increase and better working conditions

Transcript

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.

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