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Thousands across New Zealand strike over nurse pay and lack of staffing
Thousands of them walked off the job at 9am Wednesday for 24 hours over their deadlocked contract negotiations, which have dragged on since September.
Health Minister Simeon Brown insists the pay offer on the table is fair, and accuses the union of hurting thousands of patients with its hard-line tactics.
On the picketline in Wellington today, Pip Cresswell told RNZ she quit her job as a charge nurse because she was sick of not being allowed to fill vacancies and working more than 60 hours a week to cover.
Nurse says hospital conditions are ’worst in 30 years’
“We’ve got 7000 staff in Capital and Coast Hutt Valley and we’ve got 1000 positions empty. But we’re being replaced at the rate that people left last week, so we’re never going to get the 1000 people back.”
Four bus-loads of nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants from Wellington joined forces with colleagues from Hutt Hospital to march past Parliament to offices shared by the Health Ministry and Te Whatu Ora at the top of Molesworth Street.
Hutt emergency department nurse Seteli Pelasio said the risk to patients was the worst she had seen in 30 years.
Nurses and healthcare assistants strike outside Britomart Station in Auckland. Photo: Wallace Chapman
“Bloody scary, it is so scary at the moment. Not just the lack of staffing, but the experience, the staff mix on the floor.”
Specialist diabetes nurse prescriber Anne-Marie Frew said the nurse shortage meant there was a two-year wait list for patients to get insulin pumps in the region.
“I’m scared, I’m really worried about risk. I’m working in diabetes where we’ve had no increase in our nursing resources for 16 years, despite the exponential growth in people with diabetes, and the technology.”
Labour’s health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall joined the march past the Beehive.
“Some of the nurses here today I worked with when I was a specialist at Wellington Hospital. I’m really concerned about some of the things they have to say about understaffing in public hospitals. We can all see that things are getting worse rather than better.”
Brown blamed the Nurses Organisation for postponing care for 4300 patients.
“These are patients who’ve been waiting far too long on wait lists, who have now been told they have to wait longer. That’s the unfortunate reality of the nursing union deciding to strike today.”
Nurses Organisation chief executive Paul Goulter, who was among the 500-strong picket outside Waikato Hospital today, blamed the government for short-changing the public health system.
Nurses protest about dangerous staffing levels at the Hamilton Gardens. Photo: Libby Kirkby-McLeod / RNZ
“The issue is it’s all about the money and funding and the government has to stump up to restore safe staffing at our hospitals.”
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The chief executive of the Parliamentary Service is confident there will be enough room to accommodate the increased number of MPs and their staff coming into Parliament.
On current numbers, up to 131 MPs could be sitting in the Chamber following the election, brought on by a record overhang result.
Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson told the Spinoff that currently the debating chamber had enough chairs to seat 124 MPs – including the Speaker of the House – and work was being done to accommodate more by altering the seating arrangement.
In a statement, Parliamentary Service chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said planning for a larger Parliament had been going for “some time”.
“Now that the election results have confirmed an increase to the number of members we are looking at several options.
“We are confident we will be able to accommodate all members within the Chamber.”
VNP / Phil Smith
Gonzalez-Montero said office accommodation for members and their staff would be “stretched” for a short time, but the new Members’ Building was only a few months away from “practical completion”.
That building – located behind Parliament – was due to be ready to occupy in April next year and had capacity to accommodate around 30 backbench MPs.
“All members should be in fit-for-purpose accommodation from that point,” Gonzalez-Montero said.
Following the 2023 election, 123 MPs sat in the Chamber – a record number at the time. That decreased to 122 following the resignation of National MP Judith Collins.
Collins held the seat of Papakura and stepped down in May and Parliament voted against holding a by-election because it was too close to the election.
The election result also meant high-ranking National Party MPs like Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith, Nicola Willis and Gerry Brownlee – Speaker of the House and an MP for 30 years – would likely not make it back into Parliament.
Only resigning or retiring MPs were permitted to give a valedictory speech meaning none of them would get the chance to give a valedictory statement.
Asked if their would be special allowances for valedictories, Wilson said in a statement that normally only MPs were allowed to speak in the House but the House could suspend its own rules or temporarily alter them.
“It could do so to allow former members to address the House.”
Wilson said no such arrangements could be made until the next Parliament opened and members sworn in.
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