“The nursing and midwifery workforce is the backbone of the public health system, but it’s fractured,” Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Victorian branch secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said.
“The Allan Government must get serious about retaining, recruiting and rebuilding our permanent nursing and midwifery workforce.”
With its enterprise agreement having expired on April 30, the Victorian branch of the ANMF rejected the government’s proposal of a three per cent annual wage increase and a $1500 payment as part of the new agreement.
Following the state’s ballot results and a meeting held at Moonee Valley Racecourse on April 30, the decision was made to begin the first stage of planned industrial action.
This first phase will see nurses and midwives wearing red campaign T-shirts, refusing to work overtime and engaging in several forms of protest, including speaking to patients about their campaign, administrative paperwork bans, stopping work to post campaign messages on social media and placing campaign messages on their cars.
“Nurses and midwives take industrial action as a last resort when no-one is listening to them. These bans will be disruptive and may cause inconvenience, but they will not impact on patient health or welfare,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
The union has given the government a 14-day deadline to present an improved offer, warning that if progress is not made, more action will be taken from 7am on Friday, May 17.
This would entail closing one in four hospital beds, cancelling one in four elective surgeries and organising stop-work meetings.
A statewide follow-up meeting, scheduled for May 15, will be held to consider the government’s new offer or to potentially escalate the action.
Department of Health data reveals that in 2023, health services spent $291 million on overtime and hiring agency nurses and midwives.
Tracking the trend from 2018, the ANMF estimates that expenditures on a casual workforce could surpass $3 billion by 2028 if current practices continue.
Ms Fitzpatrick highlighted the need for a comprehensive strategy to address the casualisation of the workforce, which is the core issue leading to rostering challenges and significant financial inefficiencies in hospital management.
“Hospital spending on unrostered and rostered overtime and agency nurses and midwives has doubled over the last four years alone, hospitals could save a bucketload of money if they rebuild their permanent workforce,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
“We need a senior decision maker at the negotiating table who understands that workforce casualisation is the cause of our rostering challenges and a significant contributor to hospital budget blowouts.”
Since beginning in late October 2023, there have been 27 full-day meetings overseen by the Department of Health as part of the negotiations between the ANMF and the Victorian Hospitals’ Industrial Association.
“We need those with authority at the table every day until we get this done; all matters must be resolved by 14 May,” Ms Fitzpatrick said.
“If we reverse casualisation and rebuild our permanent nursing and midwifery workforce to 2018 levels, we can fix our health system.”
