Pulling the PIN Andrew Chick | Senior Communications Advisor
H
ealth and safety issues caused by unsustainable workloads and understaffing in our public hospitals have seen almost a dozen ‘PINs’ issued in the last 12 months. PINs can be a useful legal tool in holding employers to account. We spoke to nurses involved in some of the recent action to find out more. A Provisional Improvement Notice (PIN) is a written notice issued by a Health and Safety Representative (HSR) to an employer asking them to address a health and safety concern in the workplace within a set amount of time. It represents a serious escalation of a health and safety issue and means management has a legal obligation to respond and come up with workable solutions. A PIN carries the same weight as an improvement notice served by a WorkSafe inspector. Ben Basevi is a nurse at Auckland DHB. As a union HSR for the Safe Staffing Team, he has assisted other reps across the hospital and has more experience than most of issuing a PIN. “Over the last year and a half, I’ve probably issued three for non-supply of staff. I’ve issued one for when they had an unsafe visitor policy, and in October I issued six to one workplace.” Those six related to formaldehyde exposure, where a 150% increase in the
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number of workbenches in a pathology lab and the introduction of lower government exposure standards meant the ventilation system couldn’t cope. The issue reached crisis point when air quality measuring devices kept sounding the alarm, requiring evacuation. Management’s initial response was to remove the devices. Ben says PINs are a completely last resort and are usually issued after all efforts to get management to listen fail.
than happy to be there if my life needed saving. But I am also very much aware of how difficult it is when you have patient after patient and it’s just full on. You don’t get a break. You don’t get a chance to breathe,” Anne says.
We went through the whole process of reporting it and escalating it to different people.
Breaking under the strain In mid-2021, patient volumes, staffing shortages and fears patients could die waiting for treatment, led Dunedin nurse and HSR Anne Daniels to issue a PIN in the Emergency Department at Dunedin Hospital.
On her days off, Anne was getting up to six texts a day asking her to come in to cover shifts. She also had colleagues getting in touch with her in tears, breaking under the strain.
It was a move wholeheartedly backed and applauded by SMOs in the department.
She recognises that her immediate managers understood the problems, but it was becoming tougher and tougher.
“I would say Dunedin Hospital ED is a pretty tight team, and I would be more
“I think issuing a PIN is a sign of the failure of the system,” says Anne.
