Opinion: Gov’t Fails Southlanders With Nursing Crisis
It’s frightening that in the middle of a pandemic we are facing a nursing shortage in Southland.
Actually there are huge nurse shortages right across the country. Data recently released to the National Party shows that there are currently 2200 vacant nursing positions around New Zealand – including 169 here in this province.
In December the Southern District Health Board reported that some wards had as many as 11 nursing vacancies and this week it said that nothing had changed and it was still desperately trying to recruit new nurses, to cover both normal health care and to prepare for the expected impact of Covid-19
It’s no wonder then that our health workforce is feeling immense pressure, with many nurses suffering stress and exhaustion.
I’ve tried to find ways to attract more nurses to the South, including working to contact and upskill overseas-trained nurses living here. I have also made calls for the Government to relax its strict immigration regulations to allow more health staff to come to Southland.
In the meantime, Health Minister Andrew Little has sat back with his arms folded and allowed this crisis to develop.
If he had focused on getting nurses into the country, instead of ramming through a $486 million health restructure in the middle of a pandemic, many of the workforce shortages and safety issues in this province could have been avoided.
Now we’re facing industrial action as radiation physicists, technicians who manage cancer patients, and thousands of lab workers and Covid-19 contact tracers, have voted to strike.
The Minister has failed our health workforce – the very people who have worked so hard to keep us safe over the last few years.
He has actively undermined them in favour of his dangerous and disruptive health restructure plans and left local nurses, and the people of the South, in a very vulnerable position as Omicron looms.
Published by arrangement.
Penny Simmonds, Member of Parliament for Invercargill.
Email: [email protected]