The comments arise after New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels, who is also an ED nurse, worked out that using Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora’s (HNZ) own modelling, the ED department required to fill at least 16.75FTE positions over the next few months.
‘‘In June, they identified [the shortage], and they should have gone out and immediately started recruiting,’’ Ms Daniels said.
‘‘So in October, I went to KiwiHealthJobs, which lists the number of roles that Health New Zealand is actively recruiting for, then I went to Health New Zealand’s website. I went to Seek. I went to a number of vacancy websites where jobs for nurses are advertised.
‘‘And not one of the advertisements were for any job in the emergency department in Dunedin on that day.’’
Ms Daniels said the pressures were being constantly felt in ED departments in Dunedin and across the country, because HNZ was not being upfront about hiring.
‘‘We are still battling for the rest of those nurses [to be recruited].
‘‘In the meantime, our department is getting busier and busier.
‘‘Patients are getting sicker and sicker. We used to have a few sick patients. Now the entire department is full of sick patients.’’
Ms Daniels said HNZ was not recruiting to need.
‘‘They’re not recruiting to their own care capacity demand processes, and they are expecting nurses to continue to go to work in unsafe, unbearable work conditions.
‘‘The employer is supposed to provide safe work conditions.’’
Ms Daniels said a lot of issues had come to a head in recent times, leading to the strikes over the past month and associated health advocacy such as the Buller Declaration.
Yesterday, the ODT received a statement from HNZ Southern group director of operations Craig Ashton.
‘‘The Dunedin Hospital emergency department (ED) currently has one registered nurse vacancy (0.7 FTE), which we expect to fill shortly.
‘‘Care Capacity Demand Management FTE calculations for the emergency department are still being finalised.
‘‘Separately, to further support the pressures in emergency departments, Health Minister Simeon Brown recently announced a $20 million boost to increase frontline staffing across hospitals nationwide over the next nine months.
‘‘As a direct result of this new funding, we are actively recruiting for a total of 17.3 FTE additional professional roles to support initiatives that will create shorter wait times in ED. This investment will significantly reduce ED pressure.’’
Ms Daniels said the existence of only vacant positions made no sense, unless they were calculated ‘‘according to Budget, and not need’’.
‘‘Those are two very different things, and it’s where the rubber hits the road.’’
She said the Care Capacity Demand Management FTE calculations were completed in June, while she was wanting to know where the 17.3 additional FTE would be distributed.
‘‘That will possibly include healthcare assistants, doctors, whatever. We need to get a breakdown of what those FTEs are, and whether or not that’s going to go to Dunedin Hospital ED alone.’’
