Kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku
Tōpūtanga Tapuhi Kaitiaki o Aotearoa NZNO

I’d like to start by acknowledging every member, nurse, midwife, health care assistant, tauira and Kai Mahi. The collective support and member action throughout the country shows not only the power in members’ collective action/kotahitangi but a strong need for change.

As I am writing the blog this week, our Te Whatu Ora workforce has been holding stop work meetings around the country. The momentum, energy and frustration was palpable. Power belongs in the hands of members including nurses and students who are work on the coal face because only then can we see the need and we can build the momentum and change. The organisation has shifted to a model where the devolvement of responsibilities that once upon a time sat in the central office is moving to locally driven initiatives where we have local members driving the need.

The issue with Ward 5 was a monumental turning point because it identified a local issue and members organised locally. Challenging a Goliath of a healthcare system and the victory was not just for Ward 5, but a win for every member of NZNO. What it means is that local concerns have national importance. The collective movement and the collective action of solidarity was phenomenal. We need to make sure that regardless of who takes the next action we continue to build a united collective movement. Whether the next Ward 5 comes from Wairoa, or Eketahuna is irrelevant because it’s just important as the next. Every time nursing is eroded, it impacts on all of us.

I reflect on the organisation that was and where we’re going. Building locally with local membership and leadership is what we need to make national change. Kia Kaha and let’s continue.

I acknowledge the pressure that nursing continues to experience has had a huge influence on where we are today. Nursing isn’t far from everybody’s mind that is why we continue to build the traction.

Fundamentally, at the heart of the issue in any health care system is the health and safety for our nurses. They need to feel safe at work to be able to deliver high quality care in a safe environment.

As we’ve seen in Ward 5, if those standards drop then we have a responsibility to our patients or consumers of the service to advocate and challenge the poorly functioning system. We have to ensure that these standards of care are lifted because ultimately at the end of that service delivery there is a patient. Any health care that is substandard ultimately impacts on the consumer receiving the service.

We do have a responsibility to ensure the health and safety requirements under the health and Safety at Work Act are upheld and we are not working and delivering substandard care because of the restrictions imposed by the work environment.

For a long time we have been calling on the Minister to acknowledge the crisis that exists within the nursing workforce for far too long the issue had been ignored, not for want of trying, not for want of persistence, but at that stage the voices of nurses wasn’t important. Now, once the health and safety of not just nurses but consumers are impacted, this becomes a state of emergency. The actions and what we must continue to do is call out whenever this emergency that impacts on the health and safety of not just nurses, but consumers of the service that deserve quality care and a high standard of service and care has been impacted this is the emergency.