Have your Say

Letter Of The Month

St Vincent’s win nurse-to-patient ratios

NSWNMA branches of St Vincent’s Private and Mater Hospitals have been in negotiations with management to secure fair pay and working conditions within the Enterprise Agreement (EA) framework for the past eight months. The EA bargaining with management came to a halt, resulting in mass protected industrial action at both hospitals since December last year.

However, on 5 July, St Vincent’s Health Australia finally agreed to implement nurse-to-patient ratios on all shifts, in all clinical areas, from July 2024.This is a real investment in the nursing workforce across both sites.

We credit the efforts of every member who participated in this extraordinary campaign.

Member leaders presented to our executives pledges of support from over 1140 staff across both sites. Thereafter, members voted to participate in our first strike on 22 December. Most of our nursing colleagues attended. Impressively, many non-nursing colleagues also joined us. Many came on their days off, with their children and grandchildren.

It really was a momentous day. The first rally endorsed just what solidarity and unity looks and feels like.

The SVPH branch voted to participate in an Association scrub-wearing day, five consecutive lunchtime rallies and multiple stop work rallies. Nine in total.

We met with political allies and were overwhelmed by their support.

It took enormous courage for our members to stand up and seek change. To take actions that have not been taken by nurses in the private health system for decades. Now, the branches of SVPH and the Mater take enormous pride in all that our members have achieved by standing together.

Kate Westwood, NSWNMA Branch Secretary, St Vincent’s Private Hospital

If there’s something on your mind, send us a letter and have your say. The letter of the month will WIN a gift card. The letter judged best each month will receive a $50 Coles Group and Myer gift card.

Getting nursing back to basics

I have been a registered nurse for more than 30 years.

Working on the wards has become a ‘tick the box’ exercise, with management putting greater emphasis on assessments and ticking of boxes, rather than on nurses taking the time to ensure patients receive the right level of care.

It saddens me to think that nursing has become an assessment, computer-driven and productivityorientated profession. This is all while patients lie in a bed, often with missed care. To be told “he had a wash and bed change yesterday, so he will be okay today” is simply not good enough in my book.

I have also experienced scenarios where a patient has missed a meal due to nursing staff being too busy to feed them. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs puts food and water as a basic need, but due to staff shortages, patients are not receiving this fundamental care.

I feel the time has come for nursing to get back to basics. In doing this, we would be checking patients for pressure injuries, asking about their pain, monitoring their bowels, and listening to their chests. This all prevents issues that arise from patients being left in bed with a lack of care interventions.

While we wait for ratios to be implemented and staffing numbers to improve, we must try to remember to curb our over-reliance on technology and get back to the basics of nursing care: talking to our patients.

Siobhan Mills, CNS

Empowering mothers in birth

In 2021, 36.7 per cent of pregnant women in New South Wales had a caesarean birth. Yet most were denied the chance to have a maternal-assisted caesarean section, as they are not common practice in our hospital system. But they should be.

A maternal-assisted caesarean birth is a mode of delivery that allows the mother to be actively involved in her birth. This method allows the mother to reach down to help pull her baby out of her womb and lift her baby straight onto her chest for immediate skin-to-skin contact. Empowering women to be more involved in their caesarean births will lead to a warmer and more positive experience for mothers in an environment that can be seen as clinical, cold and unnerving. Maternal-assisted caesarean sections also demonstrate improvements in maternal and neonatal wellbeing, including early commencement of breastfeeding and delayed cord clamping. When we give our women birthing options and when we support their informed decisions, we see new mothers entering the postpartum period with a sense of pride and contentment, and that paves the way for positive mental health in motherhood. Maternal-assisted caesareans provide women with options and ultimately, it is what women want, and deserve, when they prepare to birth their babies.

Jessica Plater, midwife

Compassion fatigue sneaks up on you

In response to the health and wellbeing article in the last Lamp edition, I was impressed by the quality of the description regarding compassion fatigue. Having worked as an RN for 30 years in nursing homes, I became well aware of the term ‘compassion’ and the need for it in the workplace. However, I had not paid much attention to the concept of compassion fatigue.

But having read the description in the last edition, I now have the words to describe what I have experienced. I now know how easily compassion fatigue can sneak up on you. The signs and symptoms of compassion fatigue had become a daily experience that consumed me, but I never had the language to describe the feelings. Compassion fatigue had not only impacted my working life, but it had also become more of a problem in my off-duty life.

In 1994, I became a carer for my daughter as she struggled with the diagnosis of a mental health crisis. For her, this became Borderline Personality Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder. As my nursing shift ended, my caring shift began as I started looking after my daughter. The extra role I gained as her carer was not one I could leave; there was no end to this shift.

Sadly, my story is not uncommon.

Judy Nicholas, retired nurse