Lower nurse-patient ratio says union

Nurses are calling for lower nurse-patient ratios to cut the number of patients they must care for during a shift.

Delegates at the New Zealand Nurses Organisation annual conference, which began in Rotorua yesterday, heard that nurse-to-patient numbers in busy wards were unsafe.

"Far too many nurses are leaving nursing because of work overload and many nurses feel demoralised because they cannot deliver the care they went into nursing to provide," union president Jane O'Malley said.

The Australian state of Victoria had a legally binding nurse-patient ratio of 1:4, and more than 4000 nurses had returned to Victoria's hospitals because of it, she said.

In contrast, New Zealand nurses were arriving at hospitals to find themselves grossly overworked if just one colleague was off sick, and "patients in corridors" for lack of space, she said.

However, a proposal for trials of a ratio had been turned down last month by the Ministry of Health.

Health Minister Annette King said nurse-patient numbers would be included in a system already being introduced that included better staffing structures.

Despite this, the union said yesterday that it would run an educational campaign to promote the ratio.

The union also announced that a multi-employer collective agreement covering 3000 nurses, midwives and health assistants in the South Island had been narrowly ratified after 18 meetings of members last weekend.

The agreement gives members a pay rise of between 7.5 and 9 per cent over 18 months.

The South Island's top-tier registered nurses will gain pay parity with their North Island counterparts of $45,000 a year by December next year.

However, other nurses will still be paid less than North Island nurses.

The union's industrial adviser, Glenda Alexander, said yesterday that voting numbers were not released, but the "close" result put boards and the Government on notice for next year.

A planned two-hour strike last Friday was averted after settlement was reached.

NZNO membership has reached an all-time high of nearly 34,000 members, up 30 per cent in the past three years.

- NZPA