KEY POINTS:
Working night shifts with two school-aged children is a recipe for regular nightmares for Auckland nurses Ruth and Gordon Love.
Mr Love works an average of 40 hours a week on rotating 12-hour shifts for a district health board.
Mrs Love works three eight-hour night shifts a week at the Mercy Hospice in Ponsonby.
Sometimes they coincide. But once to three times a week on average, they have to call in Mrs Love's sister or a friend's son to look after their children aged 12 and 8 when their shifts overlap - often for just an hour or so between Mr Love leaving for work at 6.30am and Mrs Love's shift finishing at 7.15am.
Mrs Love would like to work shorter shifts, but can't.
"I work 24 hours. I'd quite like to spread it over four days [in six-hour shifts], but there's just no way I can do that," she says. "I don't know of any place that does that sort of thing."
As a parent, she wants to be home when her children get back from school.
"We all know what's happening with the youth today, so I think it's good to have their parents around as much as possible," she says.
"But in Auckland we can't afford to live on one income. I used to work in a clinic, but when my daughter turned 8 decided I needed to be around after school more, so the only way I could do it is permanent night shift, so at least I'm around in the evenings."
She is currently on accident compensation, but says the shift system will not let her return to work for four hours at a time "to see how I go".
"They have these fixed shifts which in most places are eight hours or in other places 12 hours, usually with fixed start times. I suppose it's a matter of looking outside the square and maybe thinking, hey, can we have two people for six hours rather than a night shift person for 12 hours?"
Mercy Hospice chief executive Jan Nichols says the hospice and the Nurses Organisation have set up a working party on workload to consider "a range of issues including flexible work patterns".
"It isn't a direct result of the law. It's just a kind of goodwill gesture, a partnership around some of the issues that we have with recruitment and retention and how our staff manage their workload."
