It’s time to give back

Published: 6 April 2009

As you will see from the content contained in this edition, it’s already been an extremely busy and exciting year for the QNU and its members.

Last month I travelled to Canberra with QNU member Alba Vignolo, who works as an AIN in aged care.

Together with our colleagues at Australian Nursing Federation branches across the country, we launched our aged care campaign “Because We Care”.

“Because We Care” isn’t just about asking for additional funding and staffing or increased support for aged care nurses to provide the type of care they’d like (although these are the key elements of our campaign), it’s about fighting for the valuing and respect of nurses working in the industry.

For too long those doing nursing work in aged care—including Registered Nurses, Enrolled Nurses and Assistants in Nursing—have gone unrecognised as the highly skilled and dedicated professionals they are.

Aged care nurses have been neglected by the government, taken advantage of by many of their employers, and are unknown by much of the community who have yet to come in contact with the aged care system.

The wage of an aged care nurse has fallen far behind that of a nurse in the public sector—even though they are performing equally challenging work—while many nurses working in other sectors would be shocked at just how many residents, with varying levels of acuity, even one aged care nurse is expected to care for.

Aged care nurses are concerned that quality of care is suffering as a result of this untenable situation.
However, they stay on and continue to do their very best under extremely difficult circumstances because, more than anything else, they love what they do.

Aged care nurses develop strong relationships with their residents—through constant and holistic care, these nurses are friends and advocates to the most frail and vulnerable in our community.

Aged care nurses give so much. Now it’s time to give back to them the value and respect they deserve.

Aged care nurses know, the QNU knows —now it’s up to us to show the federal government, aged care providers and the community just how challenging being an aged care nurse is and why aged care nurses deserve to be valued and respected.

I call on each and every nurse and midwife belonging to the QNU to get involved in this campaign.

You can start by reading our feature on pages 14-17 of the April 2009 tqn and visiting the website www.becausewecare.org.au to learn more.

Aged care nurses need your help because one day you or someone you love will certainly need theirs.

It’s not just nurses in aged care that deserve to be valued and respected either. We will continue to campaign, in all that we do, to ensure nurses and midwives working in all sectors receive appropriate recognition for the important work you do.

And we will continue to fight to ensure the health and aged care industries are given the right level of commitment and priority to ensure you are able to fulfil your role to your fullest potential.

We appreciate the recently re-elected Premier Bligh’s commitment to prioritise health by allocating the portfolio to her trusted deputy, Paul Lucas.

The Premier’s commitment gives us confidence that the government has renewed its focus on health.

We look forward to working with Mr Lucas and hope that his authority and seniority means decisions can be made quickly and decisively, and change, where necessary can be made systemically and for the long term.

It’s going to be a very busy year for QNU members and we are with you all the way.

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