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Nurses want to contribute to new system, not just watch a game of musical chairs
Nurses want to contribute to new system, not just watch a game of musical chairs
Members of the New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa team work through the official documents to find out what we know about the proposed health sector changes and talk to folk in the sector about what’s happening
If the reforms’ disruption sparks new collaborative opportunities, then nursing is ready, reports Fiona Cassie
The health reforms documents don’t shed much light on specific health workforces in primary care.
The papers discuss general practice’s or GP teams’ role and funding under the new locality network system. A fact sheet on primary and community services includes district nurses and public health nurses under that umbrella.
Health minister Andrew Little says the reforms mean doctors, nurses and other health workers can “concentrate on patients instead of battling bureaucracy”.
In his launch speech, Mr Little added that, among the five “system shifts” required to reform the health system it is stated that “health and care workers will be valued and well trained for the future health system”.
The new agency Health New Zealand is to be responsible for national workforce planning and development.
Nursing leaders hope the reforms’ disruption will open up opportunities for significant change and for new voices to sit at the policy table.
The New Zealand Nurses Organisation hopes the focus on a single national health system may see resolution of the large pay-parity gaps experienced by many nurses working outside DHBs.
NZNO president and kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku aspires for nurses to be “recognised and paid as a group of health professionals, not depending on where you work”.
College of Nurses Aotearoa executive director Jenny Carryer says there is not enough detail to see how the reforms’ new structures will pan out for primary healthcare nursing.
She is hoping for significant change, including the release of nursing from “current employment constraints”, more new graduates into primary care settings, and investment to foster and grow Māori and Pacific nursing workforces.
Professor Carryer says these changes require a detailed workforce development strategy, and requires “following the advice nursing has provided for many years, which has fallen on deaf ears”.
This was echoed by Ms Nuku. She says nurses want more than public sympathy for pay disparities, including the iwi and Māori nurses whose cause she has long championed. “We want to be recognised and contribute actively across all tables.
“And what Māori nurses have also said is, we don’t just need to shift managers from one position under an old health system to the new health system, we also need to be looking at people who will bring innovation, will listen and are not afraid of change.”
She says nursing also hopes bringing in the consumer voice may help “deconstruct what is predominantly quite a medical space”, and foster innovation and better collaboration.
Former Ministry of Health chief nurse Margareth Broodkoorn told the recent National Rural Health Conference that the health sector reforms should focus first on what people need, and then build services and workforce around that.
“We can’t be precious about setting up systems that respond to us keeping our jobs; we need to look at other ways of doing things, including using our unregulated workforce,” says Ms Broodkoorn, who is also chief executive of Hauora Hokianga.