petition | NZNO's Blog

August 12, 2014
by NZNO 2 Comments

8,000 signatures! Petition goes to Parliament.

Today we took our 8,000 strong petition calling for a nurse entry to practice position for every new graduate nurse to Parliament. Ryan Boswell from TV1 and his cameraman were waiting to find out what was going on.

You can see the ONE news piece here: Desperate nurses call for jobs action

NZNO president Marion Guy talked about the nursing shortage New Zealand is facing – we will be short more than 15,000 nurses by 2035!

Kaiwakahaere Kerri Nuku explained how important it is to have a homegrown nursing workforce. We need nurses who are representative of our population; that means we need to train and retain way more Maori and Pacific nurses and rely less on internationally qualified nurses.

We had a quick photo with the petition before Marion, Kerri and our CE Memo Musa went into the Beehive to meet with Minister of Health Tony Ryall. An entire class of school kids spontaneously joined us!

Marion, Kerri and Memo head into the meeting.

The rest of us, enrolled nurses, registered nurses, student nurses, new grads, delegates and NZNO staff, unfurl the petition. It’s massive! 8,000 signatures takes a lot of paper to print.

While a few members roll the petition back up, the reporter talks to new grad, Kim Lane. Kim talks about what it’s like to spend years getting a nursing degree and have no job to go to at the end of it. Madness! We’re going to need every nurse we can get in a year or two…

Here’s hoping the Minister sees the sense in what we’re asking for. The nursing workforce must be a priority.

August 11, 2014
by NZNO 1 Comment

New Zealand women, first to vote

NZNO organiser and our StandUp representative on the Council of Trade Unions Women’s Council, Georgia Choveaux talks about how proud she is that New Zealand women were the first to vote.

“You do not have the right to vote.”

Can you imagine being told that? That nature did not intend you to have a say in politics and how your country is run. Can you imagine instead being pointed back in the direction of the kitchen stove and silenced?

Well our great, great grandmothers were told they had no right to vote, because they were women, and what they did about it is one of the greatest tales our country has known.

They organised, spoke up, marched and they signed. In fact, 32,000 women signed the 1893 Petition calling for votes for women, and on this day, 11 August, in 1893 that petition was delivered to Parliament.

Sir John Hall wheeled in the hopes and aspirations of every one of those women. The petition was so large it had to enter parliament in a wheel barrow. The petition was then unrolled, each signature representing a voice for equality, down the aisle of our debating chamber until it thumped against the far wall.

Can you imagine?

Over 500 sheets of paper glued together, 270 metres long, 32,000 signatures with one demand: the VOTE

Just six weeks later, on the 19^th of September 1893 our great, great grandmothers succeeded… they won New Zealand women the right to vote.

I am so proud of how our foremothers fought for my right to be a voter. So I’m not wasting that right this election.

I am going to vote at my nearest polling booth on the very first day of voting – September the 3^rd.

I am going to be heard. I am going to be a New Zealand woman who is first to vote. Will you join me?

PS … If you want to see if you have any 1893 suffragette petitioners in your family search your family name or street address here to see if their voice was wheeled into parliament a hundred and twenty one years ago today.

Check out our Suffrage information document (pdf) for more information about the campaign for women’s suffrage in New Zealand.

July 30, 2014
by NZNO 4 Comments

Some questions and answers about our campaign for new grad nurses

NZNO acting professional services manager, Hilary Graham-Smith answers a few of the questions people have been asking about our campaign to get a ‘nurse entry to practice’ position for every new grad nurse.

Q: Aren’t the tertiary institutions just churning out too many nurses? It’s just “bums on seats” with no thought for the workforce needed.

A: The NZNO petition calling for 100% of new graduates to be employed in a NEtP programme has drawn comment about the role of the education providers in creating what is seen as a glut of new graduates i.e. the problem of lack of employment for new graduates is seen as a consequence of large intakes of students to boost enrolment numbers and keep the tertiary institutes fiscally upright.

NZNO has been working with other national nursing organisations (known as the NNO group) in developing a report on the New Zealand nursing workforce for Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ).

The report describes the demographic and fiscal challenges facing the health system and plots these against the challenges facing the New Zealand nursing workforce. The challenges to the system are the growing and aging population with the incumbent increase in demand for health services. The challenges for nursing are similar with 50% of the nursing workforce predicted to retire over the next 21 years.

Filling the gap requires forethought and planning, not in 21 years time but now, including knowing the numbers of student intakes in tertiary institutions and whether these are appropriate for future nursing workforce requirements.

Q: How can there be a shortage of nurses if the ones we’re training can’t get a job? Doesn’t that suggest the opposite?

A: The NNO report states that if everything remains the same (student recruitment, retention, numbers active in the workforce) then we will have sufficient nurses in the workforce until about 2020 but maintaining the existing status quo will result in a shortage of 15,000 nurses by 2035. The supply issues need to be addressed now both in terms of recruitment and retention and the NNO group has signalled the need for those workforce planning conversations to occur across the sector so that we have enough nurses and so that the nursing workforce reflects the needs of our population.

Q: What’s the big deal about NEtP anyway? Shouldn’t nurses just get a job like any other new graduate coming out of a tertiary institution?

A: The aim of the NEtP programme is to ensure that new graduate nurses commence their careers in a safe, supported clinical environment where they can grow their skills and confidence as RNs. It provides a framework for further learning and development and contributes to the development of a sustainable nursing workforce. The education providers and their curricula are subject to monitoring and approval by the Nursing Council in order to ensure a high quality of delivery and achievement.

Q: Why do we need a plan? Isn’t “supply and demand” enough?

A: Our campaign for 100% employment of new graduate nurses is as much about the need for a nursing workforce plan, something which is woefully absent at present. Given the predictions in regard to the shortage of nurses NZ will experience in the not too distant future we want Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ) to realise its commitment to work with the NNO group and sector to put a plan in place to avoid this shortage. Our new graduates are an important part of that plan in terms of managing the supply side pressures.

Q: Nice idea, but where’s the money going to come from?

A: Medicine (ie doctors) currently receives 60% of HWNZ funding for workforce development. Nursing shares the other 40% with other allied health professions. We believe it is time that nursing as the largest health workforce are given an equitable share of the funding so that we can recruit to and retain our New Zealand prepared nursing workforce.

We’re asking the Minister of Health, Tony Ryall to commit to 100% NetP for new graduate nurses and to come up with the funding to achieve this.

And we’re asking you to sign and share the petition with your family and friends.

Ma whero ma pango ka oti ai te mahi
With red and black the work will be complete
(If we all do our part our goal will be achieved)

You can find out more about the New Zealand Nurses Organisation campaign to support our new grads here: http://www.nzno.org.nz/newgrads

July 21, 2014
by NZNO 37 Comments

Every new grad nurse deserves the best start to their career

Today the New Zealand Nurses Organisation is launching a petition aimed at achieving a nurse entry to practice (NEtP) position for every new grad nurse.

New Zealand is facing a significant nursing shortage over the next decade. We need to begin growing a sustainable, home-grown and highly skilled nursing workforce if we are to maintain the high quality of nursing care we all deserve. We’re educating some of the nurses needed to fill that gap and we need to support them to gain experience and stay in New Zealand.

The nurse entry to practice programme is a structured support programme for newly graduated nurses. The programme provides each new graduate nurse with support and mentoring in their first year of practice.

The Minister of Health, Tony Ryall needs to fund a one year nurse entry to practice programme for 100% of new graduate nurses, now – it’s the only way to get the nursing workforce we want in years to come.

New Zealand is educating nurses and then leaving large numbers of new graduates unable to find work in a clinical setting due to limited places on NEtP programmes and/or employers requiring them to “have experience” before they will employ them. In the latest ACE round 233 of the 645 applicants have jobs. That leaves 412 new graduate nurses without jobs. The risk is that some of these nurses will gain employment in unsupported environments where there are insufficient RNs to provide mentorship. And, sadly, some won’t get a nursing job at all. This is not just about employment it is about employment in a NEtP programme.

The issue of employment in the health sector for new graduate RNs and ENs needs urgent attention. NZNO supports the national nursing organisation’s (NNO) vision for “100% graduate employment by 2018 at the latest”. (Report from the National Nursing Organisations to Health Workforce New Zealand, 2014).

Many new graduates approach NZNO seeking assistance with finding a NEtP position.

We’re asking Tony Ryall to come up with the funding.

And we’re asking you to sign and share the petition with your family and friends.

NZNO has 46,000 members and we’re hoping that every NZNO member and their family, whānau and friends will get behind this campaign!

Ma whero ma pango ka oti ai te mahi
If we all do our part we will reach our goal

You can find out more about the New Zealand Nurses Organisation campaign to support our new grads here: www.nzno.org.nz/newgrads

July 4, 2014
by NZNO 2 Comments

Asbestos needs a ban and a plan

Asbestos is the single greatest cause of work-related deaths in New Zealand. The government estimates that 170 deaths occur a year from asbestos-related diseases in New Zealand and that this will rise to over 300 as the results of the ‘asbestos boom’ of the 1970s take their toll. That’s as many as the current road toll. Even 170 is double the number of workplace deaths per year from injury – which itself is far too high, several times other countries such as the U.K. and Australia. These conditions are irreversible and the treatment options are only palliative.

According to the World Health Organisation, no level of exposure to asbestos is safe, and this has been known at least since a declaration by the World Health Organisation in 1986. The World Health Organisation says that “the most efficient way to eliminate asbestos-related diseases is to stop the use of all types of asbestos”.

Asbestos fibres, once breathed in, can stay in your body for decades before signs of disease show. Asbestos can cause serious diseases including asbestosis, pleural thickening, mesothelioma and cancers of the lung, larynx and ovary, anything from 10 to 50 years after exposure to it.

Ask any nurse who works with patients suffering from the diseases caused by asbestos and they will tell you in no uncertain terms that we must get rid of it, now!

That’s not going to happen overnight but in the meantime, we must have much better protection and training for people working with asbestos or who might be exposed to it.

We urgently need to ban the import, supply and new use of any products containing asbestos; and create and implement a plan to eradicate asbestos from the built environment by no later than 2030.

The NZ Council of Trade Unions is leading the work to achieve a ban and a plan for asbestos, and we wholeheartedly support the campaign. A healthy New Zealand can only happen when we take action against to stop preventable illness and death.

Please take a moment to sign and share the petition to ban asbestos and implement a plan to remove it from our environment.