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QNU Press Releases - August 2004
Qld Health Strategic Plan 2004 - QNU Response
31 August 2004
Nurses present Macfarlane with aged care “facts”
Access, staffing levels, care standards, food quality
and accounting standards are major concerns
The Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) has taken up Member for Groom, Ian Macfarlane’s, challenge to show him “the facts” that the nursing home system faced a crisis.
In the Toowoomba Chronicle last week (26/8/04) Mr Macfarlane was reported as saying:
“Anyone who wants to portray that the nursing home system faced a crisis in aged care services should show me the facts.”
In response the QNU has sent Mr Macfarlane a report based on the recent national aged care phone-in, as well as reports of disturbing information presented to the NSW Industrial Relations on accounting practices in the industry.
QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said the national aged care phone-in, which included 44 callers from the Darling Downs, found there is considerable concern amongst nurses, residents and their families about access to facilities, the quality of care able to be provided, staffing levels for care services and the quality of food.
“The people who called the phone-in were mostly people who had first hand experience of the system and it would be arrogant in the extreme for Mr Macfarlane to dismiss their concerns. These people know what’s going in. The fact is aged care nurses, at current staffing levels, are struggling to maintain care standards at levels understandably expected by the community.
“Aged care nurses are being bogged down with all sorts of government paperwork. However, there is insufficient accountability for how proprietors spend the taxpayers’ money they receive and how many staff they provide to care for residents.
“Concerns about the way accounts are often kept, compiled and presented in the industry were also expressed recently by a senior professor of accounting, when he gave evidence last month in an aged care nurse wages case in Sydney.
“So the ‘facts’ are Mr Macfarlane there are serious problems with the way the aged care industry operates under the Howard Government’s deregulation policies. The regular public controversies and changing of aged care ministers since 1996 is further evidence of that,” Ms Hawksworth said.
More than 300 people from across Queensland – 70 from regional areas and 234 from the metropolitan area - took the opportunity on July 3 to describe their experiences of the current aged care system during a national phone-in run by the Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) and Australian Nursing Federation (ANF). Similar Phone-ins were held in other States and Territories.
Of the 304 callers, 204 worked in a residential aged care facility, 14 were residents and 63 were relatives or friends of a resident. Forty-four were from the Darling Downs. They have helped provide the most up-to-date snap-shot of the aged care industry in Queensland and the rest of Australia.
The full phone-in report can be found at the ANF website: www.anf.org.au
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19 August 2004
Qld Health Strategic Plan 2004-10 – QNU response
1. Government seems confused over workforce issues
2. Serious concerns over use of volunteers in emergency departments
3. Health workforce and disease prevention – no mention of OH&S
There appears to be significant confusion within the Queensland Government about health workforce shortages, with Queensland Health’s new Strategic Plan contradicting Queensland Health evidence to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) in the 2002-03 public hospital nurse-wages case and recent statements by the director-general on the nurse shortage.
Last night the Queensland Health Minister, Gordon Nuttall, launched the Queensland Health Strategic Plan 2004-10, which states (page 6):
“Workforce shortage will increasingly be commonplace and will affect the healthcare industry.”
Then on page 7 it admits that:
“Towards the end of the timeframe of this strategic plan, we can expect to see an increasing need for health care and fewer people available to provide that care. We can also expect to see overseas competition for trained health professionals creating challenges for our workforce strategy.”
QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said she is pleased Queensland Health is finally admitting Queensland is not immune from the national and international nurse shortage.
“The admissions in this latest strategic plan contradict its denials, in last year’s public sector wages case, of a nurse shortage in Queensland, when it was trying to avoid giving it nurses a better pay rise,” Ms Hawksworth said.
“They also contradict a statement, made as recently as this month in a letter to me, by the director-general, Dr Steve Buckland, that ‘Queensland Health does not agree that there is a generalised shortage of nurses across the board’.
“It seems that whenever it is trying to avoid responsibilities to its nurses in terms of pay and conditions Queensland Health denies there is a nurse shortage. However, when it is in public relations mode it acknowledges the problem and tries to leave the people of Queensland with the false impression it is doing something meaningful about it. If it really wants to do something meaningful about nurse shortages, now and in the future, it will make the job more attractive through improved wages and conditions.
“Secondly, in the new Strategic Plan Queensland Health places a lot of emphasis on disease and injury prevention and promoting a healthy healthcare workforce. So I am surprised that throughout the document I can see no commitment to improving occupational health and safety (OH&S), both for health workers and the wider workforce, or building partnerships with OH&S agencies.
“Health workers, including nurses, have one of the highest workplace injury rates in the community. They are increasingly exposed to things such as workplace violence.
“Workplace health and safety problems are also one of the biggest causes of injury and disease in society as a whole. In Queensland in 2001-02 there were 15.4 workplace injuries per 1000 employees. Across Australia more than 2000 people currently die each year from workplace accidents and disease. Considerable health resources and hospital time are utilised assisting victims.
“So I cannot understand why a strategic plan supposedly aimed at disease and injury prevention and a more healthy healthcare workforce completely fails to address, or even mention, this issue.
“Finally, while launching the plan the Health Minister is reported as saying he intends going ahead with his proposal to use volunteers in emergency departments. Obviously we will need more detail, but there are serious problems with such an idea.
“For a start there are significant workload implications for emergency department staff. Asking them to spend time explaining things to volunteers, who are often untrained, is unrealistic. If they had the time to do that they could deal directly and more quickly themselves with any people who are waiting in an emergency department.
“There are also major privacy issues that would need working through. People arriving at emergency departments usually don’t want the whole world knowing their business, especially in smaller communities. Illness and injury can often be very personal and, at times, even undignified and embarrassing.
“There are also practical and resourcing issues in terms of managing the volunteer list. Anyone who has ever run a school tuckshop or any other volunteer organisation will tell you how hard and unpredictable this can be. The Health Minister can be assured he won’t be just introducing this without considerable discussion and consultation with stakeholders such as the QNU,” Ms Hawksworth said. | 
