Category: New Zealand Associations and Organisaitons

Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Indicators framework won’t solve health staffing crisis

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Toi Mata Hauora says what would make a real difference to patient care in New Zealand is key indicators on safe and sufficient staffing levels.
The Health Minister Andrew Little has announced that national health targets are to be abolished and replaced by 12 indicators, based on the Government’s six priorities for health, to identify whether work is being met.
ASMS agrees that health targets have never been a reliable assessment of how well health services are performing.
Executive Director Sarah Dalton says introducing an indicators framework is all very well, but the health system relies on people to keep it going and deliver timely and accessible healthcare.
“The reality is that our hospitals and health services are so short-staffed that it is increasingly becoming a health and safety issue, reaching a point where providing patient care is often unsafe.”
Senior doctors have just ended a week of stopwork meetings with another week planned next week over their stalled employment contract negotiations.
“What we are being told is that our senior doctors and their healthcare colleagues are at the end of their tether and their work has become unsustainable. They say some services have disappeared or are no longer available due to a lack of specialist staff, they can’t take leave because there is no backup, and they’re burning out and leaving the public health system,” says Sarah Dalton.
ASMS is urging the Government to urgently address current and future healthcare staffing needs across our hospitals and clinical services.
“If it doesn’t, patients will continue to miss out and the health workforce will burnout. The health and sustainability of our health workforce is critical. Let’s have an indicator to measure that,” Sarah Dalton says.
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Senior doctors to hold stopwork meetings

Senior hospital doctors and dentists who are members of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists will hold a series of stopwork meetings next month to discuss their stalled employment contract negotiations.
Stopworks will be held at every DHB starting on August 2.
ASMS has been in talks with DHBs since February to negotiate a new multi-employer collective agreement or MECA, but the DHBs have failed to put an acceptable offer on the table.
“We are asking for a very modest pay rise to simply reflect cost of living increases and inflation, but the DHBs continue to come back with a zero percent increase,” says ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton.
“We are very aware of the Government’s public sector pay restraint advice, but every worker has the right to at least keep up with inflation and not see their pay go backwards in real terms.”
Specialists are fatigued and suffering high levels of burnout as they juggle entrenched staffing shortages, overflowing hospitals and overstretched services which cannot keep up with patient demand. They have also absorbed additional pressures due to the Covid backlog.
A large part of ASMS’ claim seeks to improve working conditions and doctor wellbeing to try and address issues of burnout and safer staffing, but nearly all have been rejected by the DHBs.
Sarah Dalton says every New Zealander is aware of our full hospital wards, treatment delays and difficulty getting access to services.
“It’s time the Government started walking the talk on how much we value our health workers and treat them as an asset instead of a cost”.
“We need our highly trained and skilled specialists to stay and support our health system, rather than encouraging them to up sticks and move to Australia where they can earn up to 60% more”.
ASMS is interested in continuing negotiations with the DHBs and would urge them to come back to the table with a genuine offer worth considering.
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Stopwork meetings

We are asking all members to attend stopwork meetings following very little progress in the ASMS-DHB MECA negotiations. We have had ten days of talks and the negotiations have stalled, with no acceptable offer on the table. The stopworks are an important opportunity for members to hear more details about the negotiations and feedback to the negotiating team.
Stopwork meetings will be held in each DHB between August 2-14. In some larger DHBs there will be more than one meeting to accommodate members in different sites.
Check out when and where the stopwork in your DHB is here.
Posters will also be going up around your worksite. You can download and print extra posters if needed – you can find them linked to the stopwork event calendar.
All employees who are members of a union have the right to attend a stopwork meeting (MECA clause 33). The meetings run for two hours and are paid. They are not a form of industrial action and DHBs must help ensure members are able to attend. This means all elective work and clinics must be postponed during that time, but essential services will be maintained.
We have created a FAQ sheet to answer some questions members may have. If you have other questions, please get in touch.
 
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Patience running thin on mental health upgrades

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Toi Mata Hauora says patients and staff will be disappointed that an inquiry into progress on planned new mental health facilities has been knocked off the political agenda.
Government MPs on Parliament’s health select committee have blocked a National Party proposal for an inquiry into the delay in providing 15 new mental health inpatient facilities which would aim to accelerate progress and assess design standards.
In its recent report, What Price Mental Health? ASMS found that DHBs frequently exceed 100% occupancy levels for mental health inpatient beds, and the number of inpatient beds per population has fallen by nearly 10% in the past five years despite rising demand.
“These units are often so crowded they are unsafe for staff and patients,” says ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton.
“So many of our mental health facilities are inappropriate and not fit-for-purpose. People can’t get well in these environments, and psychiatrists repeatedly tell us that their working conditions are incredibly stressful and demoralising.”
Sarah Dalton says patience is running thin over continued promises of new or improved facilities and while the problems escalate, the system stands still.
“Whether an inquiry into the delays would make a tangible difference is hard to know, but any cross-party political initiative aimed at delivering progress would have been welcome,” Sarah Dalton says.
Addressing short staffing is also a key priority for action as mental health units struggle with desperate gaps.
“With the demand for mental health services growing exponentially, we urgently need to undertake some proper workforce planning across all areas of mental health”.
“These issues require cooperation in Parliament and cross-party agreement and commitment to addressing them,” Sarah Dalton says.
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Your new branch officers

Find out who your new ASMS branch officers are. We have new ASMS Branch Presidents and Vice-Presidents in many DHBs following elections earlier this year. Their three-year terms began on 1 July. Branch officers are key representatives in your workplace. They promote and organise local ASMS activities and can help raise general or local issues and concerns. See the list below if you want to know who to contact.

 
 

 
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Hot off the press!

The June Specialist is out now. Read all about the health reforms and what members think. Find out what the Budget delivered for health, how members reacted to the Government’s ‘pay freeze’ and ride the e-bike wave. We also welcomed our new National Executive and you can see us out supporting our nursing colleagues in their fight for fair pay.
 

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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: ‘Fix-it’ notice needed on critical health system understaffing

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Toi Mata Hauora says an urgent ‘fix-it’ notice needs to be issued to address an understaffing crisis across the health system.
According to Radio New Zealand, Worksafe has issued Wellington Free Ambulance with a ‘fix-it’ notice over worker fatigue. Ambulance staff themselves blame the situation on a massive shortfall in staffing.
ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton says staffing shortfalls are the new normal in health, leading to high levels of burnout, people leaving and unfilled gaps.
“We have estimated shortages of senior doctors of around 24% nationwide and one in two are suffering signs of burnout. Last week we saw nurses on the streets striking in support of a pay rise but also protesting against unsafe staffing levels across DHBs”.
She says every day is a tough day at the office on the frontline of healthcare at the moment.
“People are fatigued and burned out as they juggle critical staffing shortages with increased patient demand, bed occupancy rates regularly running at 100% and frontline cancer and mental health services, to name just a couple, desperately overstretched”.
“The Government seems to think we can continue to burn through health workers and more will pop up. That’s simply not the case,” she says.
“We need a health system in which people want to work. That means valuing and investing in the workers we do have by offering pay and conditions which will encourage recruitment and retention”.
With the demand for health services projected to increase at higher rates than the health workforce can keep up with in the next ten years, ASMS is calling on the Government to urgently commit to proper workforce planning.
“The longer the Government waits to act on the critical understaffing in our hospitals and health services, the harder the fix will be,” Sarah Dalton says.
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Senior doctors throw their support behind striking nurses

The Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Toi Mata Hauora is fully supporting striking nurses in their fight for fair pay and safe staffing.
30,000 members of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation are walking off the job for eight hours today after turning down the latest pay offer from the DHBs.
ASMS Executive Director Sarah Dalton says no one knows better than doctors how valuable nurses are and the dedicated care they give to patients around the country.
“There is a staffing crisis across the entire healthcare sector and it’s time to stop ignoring the toll it is taking on our health workforce and services. Every day is a tough day in the health system right now,” she says.
“It’s playing out in high levels of burnout and skilled and experienced people heading across the Tasman for better pay and conditions”.
Today’s strike represents the deep frustration of frontline health staff about the undervaluing of their work.
“It’s disappointing that the Government and DHBs have asked nurses and other health workers for their commitment during Covid but are not prepared to repay that commitment in kind,” says Sarah Dalton.
While nurses are fighting for pay which reflects the value of their work, they also want to ensure safe staffing levels in hospitals and DHB facilities.
Sarah Dalton says, “we need to see planning and investment in the future of our health workforce prioritised, but importantly we need to be investing in and valuing the workforce we have right now”.
“Nurses are taking this strike action as a last resort, and we would urge DHBs to step up and prevent further disruption to health services by coming through with an appropriate offer”.
ASMS is currently in its own collective agreement negotiations with DHBs. If there is no progress, it will begin stopwork meetings for members in August to consider next steps.
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Nurses’ strike

We know that the nurses’ strike is going to pose real challenges to staff and patients AND we fully support their cause for decent pay and conditions.
We’ve put together some initial guidance for you on issues which arose during the last nurses’ strike in 2018 that may come up this time.
Background
The Nurses Organisation has voted to strike for eight hours on June 9, over the breakdown of their pay negotiations. We are still hopeful that DHBs will make a more acceptable offer to them. However, if strike action does go ahead, it will clearly impact on ASMS members.
Should all elective services be cancelled?
Yes. Even where staff may be available to provide a service, back up for services may be adversely affected by the strike. DHBs are rescheduling electives in advance so the wards are as empty as possible on the day. The day should be planned to be like a non-festive Christmas Day.
Should SMOs volunteer to work additional hours during the strike?
This is your call. You cannot be compelled to cover the work of a striking nurse. The life preserving services (LPS) agreements that your DHB will have with NZNO should ensure that patients are protected from permanent harm or threat to life.
What would be a fair rate of pay for any hours beyond your normal hours you agree to do?
Our recommendation is that additional work arising from the strike should be paid for as follows:

a minimum T2 of your normal hourly rate for any work requested by the employer which is work in addition to (either before or after) normal hours of work for that day
a minimum T2 of your normal hourly rate for any clinical work requested where the SMO would otherwise have been on non-clinical duties, and the non-clinical duties have not been re-scheduled. This rate is inclusive of normal pay, so is in effect T1 in addition to normal pay

Should SMOs do nurses’ work?
No. DHBs and NZNO will have agreements for the provision of life preserving services (LPS) to protect lives and avoid permanent harm.
However, sometimes the reality can be messy especially where both doctors and nurses might undertake similar work as part of their normal duties. These duties need to be within your scope of practice (this is the position of the Medical Council). You need to be familiar with and trained in the relevant procedures. Do not do anything you are not comfortable with.
Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.
Many of you will want to show support for your nursing colleagues. You can do this in any number of ways, such as wearing a badge, talking with patients about the reasons they are taking industrial action, joining the picket line before or after your workday (or during a break). We know that health workers never take industrial action without compelling reasons. We support uplift of pay and conditions for all our health care workers.
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Source: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Great line-up for the Creating Solutions virtual conference

Registrations are now open for the Creating Solutions – Towards better health equity for all conference. The virtual conference is on 2-3 July and is being co-hosted by ASMS and the Canterbury Charity Hospital Trust. We have put together an exciting programme of national and international speakers and health sector leaders.
The conference will be opened by the Health Minister Andrew Little with a keynote address by the established British health equity researcher Sir Michael Marmot.  All those attending will be asked to actively contribute to practical solutions to growing health inequities, and a list of recommendations will be taken to government. This is going to be a worthwhile and meaningful event, which also qualifies for CME points, so register now to take part.

Some of the topics include:

How to address poverty in a low wage economy and high-cost country
Ethnic and Cultural Prejudice: the long-term effects of colonisation
Universal free access to health care
How health workforces can encourage affirmative action
Public health literacy
What to do about unmet need

Read the programme here
Click here to register

A word from our conference patron Sir Jerry Mateparae GNZM, QSO, KStJ, Former Governor-General of New Zealand
We New Zealanders like to think that ours is a land of equal opportunity.  However, equal opportunity in accessing and benefitting from our health system has not addressed an inequity of health outcomes.  It is not simply the health system that has perpetuated inequitable health outcomes, there are socio-economic issues at play too.  In a recent study the groups of people with only fair or poor health were people not in the labour force and the unemployed, those aged 75 years or older, sole parents, and Māori and Pacific peoples. I congratulate the conference organizing team for setting an agenda to look at the health system and how it could be better applied to address the inequities in health outcomes for all New Zealanders.  

 

Download the poster here: Creating solutions – towards better health equity for all poster
 
 
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