Nurses at Tauranga Hospital have had their recruitment calls answered with Health NZ agreeing to hire more registered nurses.
More than 100 New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) union members and ED nursing staff declared a state of emergency last month after a patient collapsed in the hospital’s Emergency Department waiting room in August.
They wrote to Health NZ executives on September 8 calling for approval to recruit 16.78 FTE nurses.
Staff said “exceptional demand” had become their “daily reality”.
NZNO representatives and Health NZ met on September 23.
Two days later, Health NZ announced funding for 380 additional nursing, midwifery and healthcare assistant FTE roles nationally this financial year, including 94 new emergency department positions.
This included 32 FTE in the Midland region, which covers areas including Bay of Plenty and Lakes.
A breakdown provided to the Bay of Plenty Times showed Tauranga would get 7.31 of the 32 FTEs.
Health NZ has since confirmed these are among 17.5 FTE registered nursing roles being recruited for Tauranga Hospital.
On Thursday, Health NZ Bay of Plenty operations group director Joanne Gibbs said recruitment had started for these nurses.
Gibbs said the 17.5 FTE figure also included recruitment to vacant positions and additional investment in front-of-house Emergency Department roles.
Interviews for Emergency Department roles took place this week, she said.
NZNO kaiwhakahaere [director] Kerri Nuku said difficult working conditions led nurses to declare a state of emergency.
Nuku said the approval of additional roles would not have happened if staff had not reached their limit and said, “enough was enough”.
She said any additional nurse was good news for patients.
“This is the beginning of a path to safe staffing numbers and better delivery of care to the local community.”
Nuku said the next step was working with Health NZ to ensure the timely delivery of more nurses.
Rotorua Hospital
Health NZ Midland Te Manawa Taki acting regional chief nurse Colleen Vandy told the Bay of Plenty Times the additional 380 roles would strengthen its frontline national workforce.
Investment was targeted to areas and services based on need and followed Health NZ’s annual care capacity demand management (CCDM) process staffing calculations, she said.
These calculations were one way Health NZ ensured adequate staffing in wards and hospitals, she said.
Each district assessed its workforce requirements, such as patient demand, service pressures, vacancy levels and local models of care, and would continue to determine staffing requirements to best meet local needs, Vandy said.
Of the Midland region’s additional 32 FTE from this announcement, the majority were allocated to emergency departments, she said.
Allocations around the rest of the Bay of Plenty and Lakes regions included 6.94 FTE for Rotorua Hospital, 4.8 for Taupō Hospital and two for Whakatāne Hospital.
Vandy said Health NZ continuously reviewed workforce demand, staffing requirements and service needs.
It was also investigating and developing a business case for nurse-to-patient ratios, as international evidence showed these could improve patient safety, quality of care and workforce wellbeing, Vandy said.
NZNO delegate and Rotorua Hospital Emergency Department nurse Lyn Logan pictured at a strike in Rotorua last year. Photo / Megan Wilson
Rotorua Hospital ED nurse and NZNO delegate Lyn Logan told the Rotorua Daily Post the union welcomed any staffing uplift, and 380 additional FTE was “a good amount”.
Rotorua NZNO nurses went on strike several times last year, calling for more nurses and safe staffing.
This call was also reflected by nurses at the NZNO conference in Rotorua last month.
Logan said NZNO asked Health NZ during bargaining for nurse-to-patient ratios.
“That’s welcome that they’re actually going to look into that.”
On nurse-to-patient ratios, Health NZ national chief nurse Nadine Gray said Health NZ had listened to nursing staff “who have told us change is needed”.
Gray said the CCDM approach had supported workforce planning for 20 years but could be difficult to apply across a large and diverse health system.
An independent review found the approach was not appropriate for all care settings and there was no nationally agreed annual FTE methodology for some services.
Gray said different services had different needs and there was no “one-size-fits-all staffing model”.
Completion of the review and business case were expected next year and would inform any future decisions on implementation.
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.
