By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter
Nurses at Auckland Healthcare have won pay rises of up to 10.3 per cent, in a deal that is sending the state-owned hospital service way over its wages budget.
The announcement of the big pay increases wages by the nurses' union yesterday came just a week after Reserve Bank Governor Don Brash warned businesses and workers against price and wage rises to compensate for the present inflation "spike."
But Auckland Healthcare says the increases, which will boost its annual nursing wage bill 5.3 per cent to around $105 million, were forced on it by the shortage of nurses.
New Zealand nurses are being poached by overseas hospitals offering higher pay and better conditions. Britain's National Health Service alone wants to hire tens of thousands more nurses. Junior doctors, after taking strike action, won pay rises nationwide in September of at least 8 per cent, to be staggered over two years.
Auckland Healthcare nurses' base pay rates will increase 5 per cent, to 8.4 per cent, in two steps under a complex nine-month collective agreement that comes into effect on January 1. But with other changes, the new deal means some senior nurses and midwives will take home 10.3 per cent more.
By July, a fifth-year staff nurse will be earning $41,350, plus up to 20 per cent for night and weekend penal rates and up to $4000 in clinical-expertise payments.
"We are all quite pleased with the increases," one nurse said yesterday.
Nurses Organisation advocate Penny Oliver said the market-leading deal went "some way" towards addressing the under-valuing of nurses and the national shortage of them. But the group would continue pressing the Government to provide more money to improve nurses' pay and conditions.
New Zealanders' average pay rose 1.5 per cent in the year to the end of September, according to official statistics.
The Auckland Healthcare chief executive, Graeme Edmond, said last night that his organisation could not afford the doctors' and nurses' pay rises.
"They are almost three times what we budgeted for, but I have to recognise that we can't continue to operate with over 200 nursing vacancies.
"I've got to ensure that we continue to provide safe and accessible services. It's a very difficult situation."
Auckland Healthcare has still not signed its funding agreement with the Government for this financial year.
Nurses' hefty rise will blow out hospital wages budget
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