QNU press releases - July 2004
29 July 2004
Nursing hours slashed at Sunshine Coast nursing home
Nurses extend work bans today at Sundale Garden Village in Nambour
Reports of adverse resident incidents and increased staff stress are coming in
Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) members at Sundale Garden Village in Nambour will today (29 July) extend their work bans in protest at management’s failure to restore nursing hours at the Village's James Grimes Care Centre. Work bans were first put in place last Thursday (22 July).
Off-duty nurses, family members and concerned members of the community will also protest again outside the facility today - starting at 7.00am in Doolan St, Nambour - against the nursing care cuts.
From today there are bans on:
1. The working of unpaid overtime
2. Attendance at accreditation meetings and training
3. The answering of telephones
4. Accompanying medical staff on rounds
5. The completion of non-essential documentation other than incident reports
6. RCS documentation
7. ‘Wardrobe’ care plans
8. Two-monthly reviews
9. The emptying of laundry skips on evening, morning and weekend shifts
10. Registered Nurses conducting tours of the facility for prospective residents families
11. Registered Nurses putting away stores that arrive after hours.
Last Thursday (22 July) nursing hours in the Centre's 40-bed Allinga wing were cut by 237.5 hours per fortnight and 75 hours per fortnight were cut in the 39-bed Bundarra wing. This is a cut of nearly 13 per cent in the Allinga wing and nearly five per cent in the Bundarra wing.
The reduction in rostered assistant in nursing hours for the night shift in Allinga is 7.6 or nearly 30 per cent of the previously allocated hours. Allinga includes 30 residents who are in a secure dementia area. The other ten are high-care, bed-ridden residents.
QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said Sundale nurses have decided to extend their bans so they can maintain reasonable workloads and better comply with regulatory requirements, such as workplace health and safety laws, under the new roster arrangements.
“The bans are also about increasing the pressure on Sundale management to restore the lost nursing hours. The idea that this facility can’t afford to do this is nonsense. Like many aged care operators it appears to be manipulating its accounting processes to make it look as if the nursing home is going broke, when in fact the entire Sundale Garden Village facility showed a net annual surplus of more than $1.1 million in 2003.
“This issue of nursing home operators understating their profitability was the subject of evidence in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission last week. One of Australia’s most eminent accountants, Professor Bob Walker of the University of NSW, questioned accounting practices in the aged care industry and pointed out that the accounts for the entire facility, rather than just the nursing home section, are a better measure of a facility’s capacity to pay.
“The scandal in all this smoke-and-mirrors trickery with money is that it has such significant implications for nursing home staff and residents. QNU officials are already receiving reports of incidents directly attributable to last Thursday’s hours cuts, including a resident fall. We are also receiving reports of increased staff stress, with one nurse even reduced to tears because she is now having trouble completing her care duties.
"The types of things put at risk by these nursing cuts are regular turning of bed-ridden residents and timely assistance with toileting. The QNU again calls on the management of Sundale not to let this happen and to restore the nursing hours it cut last week," Ms Hawksworth said.
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21 July 2004
Nursing hours slashed at Sunshine Coast nursing home
Nurses start work bans tomorrow at Sundale Garden Village in Nambour
Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) members at Sundale Garden Village in Nambour will tomorrow morning (22 July) start work bans in protest at a management decision to slash nursing hours at the Village's James Grimes Care Centre.
Off-duty nurses, family members and concerned members of the community will also protest outside the facility tomorrow - starting at 7.00am in Doolan St, Nambour - against the cuts to nursing care.
From tomorrow nursing hours in the Centre's 40-bed Allinga wing will be cut by 237.5 hours per fortnight and 75 hours per fortnight will be cut in the 39-bed Bundarra wing. This is a cut of nearly 13 per cent in the Allinga wing and nearly five per cent in the Bundarra wing.
The reduction in rostered assistant in nursing hours for the night shift in Allinga is 7.6 or nearly 30 per cent of the previously allocated hours. Allinga includes 30 residents who are in a secure dementia area. The other ten are high-care, bed-ridden residents.
QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said these are severe cuts that have shocked staff at Sundale and shocked many family and friends of residents.
"I have no doubt that the wider community will also be shocked to learn that Sundale is doing this to frail elderly people," Ms Hawksworth said.
"The purpose of the work bans and tomorrow's protest is make the community aware of what is being done and to get Sundale management to reverse this appalling decision. The bans should not interfere with resident care. The only thing doing that is this decision to slash nursing hours. It is certainly putting resident care at risk.
"In Allinga alone nearly half an hour's care per day per resident will go. That means nursing workloads will get even heavier or less will get done. It is not as if these nurses are standing around doing nothing all day. At current staffing levels aged care nursing is hard demanding work.
"The types of things put at risk by these nursing cuts are regular turning of bed-ridden residents and timely assistance with toileting. The QNU calls on the management of Sundale not to let this happen and to restore the nursing hours being cut from tomorrow," Ms Hawksworth said.
Work bans being implemented by QNU members at Sundale from tomorrow are:
• no working unpaid overtime;
• no work on non-essential documentation;
• no attendance at accreditation meetings and training;
• competencies will only be completed in work time;
• no moving of furniture, etcetera; and
• no provision of complementary therapies.
QNU members at Sundale are scheduled to meet again next Tuesday night (27 July) to consider management's response to their campaign to have these nursing hours restored.
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13 July 2004
23rd Annual Queensland Nurses Union Conference
The 23rd annual conference of the Queensland Nurses Union (QNU) is being held over the next three days – 14, 15 and 16 July 2004 - at the Carlton Crest Hotel, Brisbane.
Nearly 300 delegates, representing more than 30,000 nurses from hospitals, community health facilities and aged care facilities throughout Queensland, will discuss a range of industrial relations, health and political issues.
Representatives of media outlets are welcome to attend the following presentations:
Wednesday, 14 July
11.40am Up-date on Violence Against Nurses
Amanda Richards
QNU Occupational Health and Safety Officer
2.00pm The Work of APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad
Sandra Moait
Chairperson of APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad
Thursday, 15 July
2.00pm The Future of Trade Unions
Chris Walton
ACTU assistant secretary
3.30pm Medicare – What’s Going On
Professor John Deeble AO (the Architect of Medicare)
Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University
PLEASE NOTE: All other sessions are closed to the media, but media outlets will be notified of any significant resolutions passed by the conference.
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5 July 2004
National Aged Care Phone-in – Queensland results
More than 300 Queenslanders share their experiences of aged care staffing levels, care standards and food quality are still major concerns
More than 300 people from across Queensland – 70 from regional areas and 234 from the metropolitan area - took the opportunity on Saturday (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. They have helped provide the most up-to-date snap-shot of the aged care industry in Queensland.
QNU secretary, Gay Hawksworth, said the number of calls received was well up on the 170 we received during a similar phone-in in 2001 and, unfortunately, we were so busy many other people could not get through.
“The phones ran hot all day, which indicates how important this issue is in the community. It takes a lot for a person to ring up a phone-in such as this and the fact that more than 300 Queenslanders saw fit to do so, sends a strong message to the Federal Government that people are very worried about its aged care policies,” Ms Hawksworth said.
“Of the callers 269 expressed concern about staffing levels for care services, 175 expressed concern about the standard of care able to be provided and 77 expressed concern about the quality of food.
“This is similar to the feedback we received in the 2001 phone-in and from other sources in the aged care sector. That means that very little has changed in the last three years and 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 no accountability for how proprietors spend the taxpayers’ money they receive and how many staff they provide to care for residents.
“As one caller said: My employer has cut nursing staff to the bone, but bought two new facilities and is now crying poor. And as one woman with parents in a private facility said: I don’t know how the funding is spent.
“This is not good enough. The Federal Government says it has provided more money for the sector, but it steadfastly refuses to introduce accountability mechanisms that make sure that money goes to the nursing staff providing the direct care of residents.
“Under current federal policies we have seen cuts to nursing hours in many facilities and the holding down of nurses wages so that they are now way behind what a nurse can earn in the public hospital sector. Is it any wonder we were getting the types of calls we took on Saturday and in such volumes?
“Saturday’s Queensland results will now be combined with the results from other States and Territories and the ANF will give a full report to the Federal Government. Hopefully this will finally force policy changes, which genuinely tackle the staffing crisis confronting aged care,” Ms Hawksworth said.
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