Keep nurses working in aged care homes

March 20, 2015
Issue 
Local state election candidates were invited but the Liberal candidate did not attend.

Imagine visiting your mum or dad, in an aged care facility, and finding that they had been left to deal with severe pain because there was no registered nurse on duty who could give them morphine.

This is a real prospect facing thousands of families in NSW if the state government changes the law requiring at least one registered nurse (RN) to be employed at nursing homes at all times. It would leave up to 48,500 vulnerable, high-needs nursing home residents, at risk in an already stretched healthcare system.

On March 11, the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association invited candidates contesting the election in Summer Hill to hear from health professionals who are supporting a campaign called RN 24/7 Aged Care.

Brett Holmes, general secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, told the 60-strong meeting that while the number of nursing homes has grown in the past 25 years, as people live longer and need specialist aged care, the number of RNs has declined.

The federal government funds RNs while the state funds the hospital system. Holmes said that law mandated an RN at all aged care homes. But in 2014, Tony Abbott’s government changed the federal Health Act making the state Act requiring RNs “non-effective”. Health workers launched a campaign for the NSW minister to put an 18-month interim Act into place to protect RNs. A decision on whether to make RNs mandatory will be made before the end of this year.

The forum heard from Charmaine Crowe (Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association), Dr Peta McVey (Sydney Nursing School), Margaret Zanghi (Quality Aged Care Action Group Inc) and Lucille McKenna (Director of Nursing, St Mary's Villa and Mayor of Ashfield).

All affirmed that fewer RNs means less access to clinical expertise and more reliance on less qualified staff. It would make GPs reluctant to come to nursing homes, put more pressure on the hospital system and stretch the ambulance system.
Crowe said: “It’s a no-brainer that if the NSW government wants to keep nursing home residents out of emergency departments, it must keep legislation requiring nursing homes to roster on a registered nurse 24/7.”

If this requirement goes, she said, “More nursing home residents will be sent to emergency departments because their care needs cannot be met by the nursing home. Bed block will worsen when residents can’t be sent back to the nursing home, because it doesn’t have appropriately skilled staff.

Labor, Greens and Socialist Alliance candidates addressed the meeting, all of whom pledged to support the campaign. The Liberal candidate did not attend.

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