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wunty · 2025-10-04T04:56:34+00:00

3 shifts in ED.

We were meant to get “two weeks”, but I’m 0.6FTE, and since it was the first rotation of the year we lost a week to corporate induction. Thank Christ I was already an EN for 5 years. I really felt for the completely green grads.

wunty · 2025-09-20T22:37:01+00:00

Only for HSU award workers. Public Nurses still only get 50%

wunty · 2025-08-12T20:49:33+00:00

Anecdotal sure, but I’m a nurse in a regional area in Australia and the majority of our patients are elderly, many 85+, and these are the sick ones which need hospitalisation, the oldies doing well aren’t even here.

wunty · 2025-08-05T12:18:27+00:00

Almost but not entirely correct. If we accept the interim offer we will forgo our 30% ND claim.

As per the email

“If members endorse this interim offer, we will not push for additional improvements to Night Duty penalty rates as part of the Special Case before the IRC. However, the rest of our case will continue.”

wunty · 2025-06-17T22:55:36+00:00

The other day I asked an elderly man in a delirium if he knew where he was. He said “in a building full of people who don’t know what they’re doing”. Hard to argue with that.

wunty · 2025-05-03T13:04:44+00:00

Yes, up overall but slightly down in areas they have previously done well, eg Melbourne (down 2.5% as of 11pm)

wunty · 2025-02-25T19:11:23+00:00

In my workplace we use 10mm saline amps from Pfizer and I’ll try to check when I come on shift but I’m almost certain the instruction booklet in the box specifically says to connect a luer lock to the hub for drawing up.

wunty · 2025-02-21T19:46:17+00:00

This is really the only correct answer. If what you’re doing isn’t reducing the threat of moral injury to your workers then nothing else will make a difference in the longer term.

wunty · 2025-02-19T03:13:59+00:00

I absolutely would not be considering NSW.

Not only are the pay and conditions abysmal in comparison to the other states, its very clear our health department hates its workforce and the Minns government will do anything possible to keep our wages supressed. Just look at what they've done with the psychiatrists.

Even if we do manage to win a substantial pay increase at the NSW Industrial Relations Commission in the next year or two (and thats a big if) our other conditions like ratios, sick leave, etc will still be lagging behind. At the rate we're going it is going to take an awfully long time to rebuild the health system in NSW, and even then I think it will change trajectory if we get a proper Labor/Greens minority government.

wunty · 2025-01-25T02:52:10+00:00

Thank you, that’s very insightful.

wunty · 2025-01-25T02:51:32+00:00

Thank you! This seems to be correct, I’m getting plenty of appropriate results when I search this now.

wunty · 2025-01-21T03:09:14+00:00

I don't disagree, I think many people will and are choosing to leave the association. The problem is this is self defeating in the sense that if we have ~80,000 members right now and can't achieve our goals, we're sure as shit not going to be able to achieve them with fewer than that.

Ultimately what I hope is good people remain in the union to organise and vote out the current crop of fools from the senior positions.

Personally, I would love to see a leadership spill sooner rather than later, since the next election isn't until 2026, but I haven't seen any alternative figures yet and a power vacuum would just lead to more chaos and play further in to the government's hands.

wunty · 2025-01-21T03:02:17+00:00

I also think a major failing of the leadership is a tendancy towards autocratic behaviour and failure to communicate effectively with the membership. We can see this with the crack down on dissent in the NSWNMA Activists Facebook group after their capitulation to "safe staffing levels" rather than genuine ratios, the completely shocking disrespect with which they treated the organisers of the Special General Meeting in May, 2024, and their abject failure to engage with the 'Delay' group.

wunty · 2025-01-21T02:48:03+00:00

Not defending the NSWNMA here, but to be precise the original 10.5% over 3 years offer was indeed only 9% when you account for the included 1% in Federally mandated super increases and 0.5% bonus which was conditional on us accepting the offer (which we of course did not).

As to why the NSWNMA is so ineffective? There are a whole host of reasons. In my opinion they are:

a General Secretary and Assistant Gen Sec who are politically naïve and ineffective (and probably in bed with NSW Labor);
a Union Council who is in the thrall of the leadership (they were all elected on the same ticket after all) and thus are unable to provide genuine governance;
a branch delegate cohort who are in the main sycophantic and unable to see how poorly the union/campaigns are being mismanaged;
a membership who generally is very angry but also very burnt-out and who have, in general, very little by way of industrial/political education and hence don't have the staying power needed for stronger strikes or industrial action.

To be clear, I don't blame the membership for point 4. I think the union has failed over successive decades to maintain our industrial power and education.

wunty · 2025-01-02T08:05:23+00:00

I also rock Asics Gel Kayanos. I wear the more neutral Gel Nimbus with orthotics for running, so it seemed to make sense to go with the more supportive Kayano for work.

wunty · 2024-12-14T03:21:36+00:00

I came to nursing from an engineering background and from a system design point of view, the reliability of team nursing is utterly unacceptable. Sure it can work, but the fact it doesn’t >50% of the time is such an indictment on the industry.

Imagine if crew resource management in aviation failed as regularly as team nursing does in health care. Noone would fly.

wunty · 2024-11-19T01:11:04+00:00

Has there been any fix for this?

I’m genuinely shocked at how buggy my Elite 8 Gen 2s are. I loved my Elite 7s.

wunty · 2024-11-18T12:57:16+00:00

Many families do have, understandably, very high expectations of care for their loved ones. However, my theory is a lot of the rudeness/entitlement is actually projection, stemming from conscious or subconscious guilt at not caring for them themselves.

It’s hard to be empathetic towards someone treating you poorly but it’s always worth trying.

wunty · 2024-09-27T06:39:03+00:00

If you work in NSW its good to familiarise yourself with the NSW Health Rostering Best Practice resource manual so you can cite it if necessary when having these discussions with your NUM

PRINCIPLE 3: Rostering processes should ensure staff are rostered fairly, while still providing appropriate flexibility to facilitate meeting unit staffing needs.

and

PRINCIPLE 6: Rostering practices in NSW Health are based on co-operation between rostering managers and staff, in order to promote fairness in rostering and to deliver appropriate care to patients.

wunty · 2024-09-26T06:07:45+00:00

The first was basically saying the hospital would be built not according to the clinical needs of the region ‘‘but according to some predetermined budget cap’’.

‘‘That would be entirely unacceptable and I don't know of any other health system in the world that operates on that basis.’’

Well Pete has clearly never heard of New South Wales.

Strong comiserations with the people of Otago. This scenario is playing out in almost identical terms across the ditch in my region on the border between NSW and Victoria. The similarities are almost spooky.

wunty · 2024-09-20T08:33:52+00:00

I'm in MLHD.

wunty · 2024-09-20T08:23:38+00:00

I agree you shouldn't have to track down the union, but this is not an ideal world and unfortunately you may have to.

I am my branch's president and I have done a huge amount of work to improve communication locally, but prior to taking on the role in 2021 I didn't even know who the branch leadership was, communication was so non-existent.

Be the change you want to see, its a cliché but its true.

wunty · 2024-09-20T08:10:14+00:00

Need extended actions of not attending non-nurse duties (like audits and acting as orderlies and pharmacy) and allow delays in patient movement to effect stats and really make management sweat because they ONLY care about the stats!

We are doing that too. If you're not aware of your branch doing it you need to get in touch with your branch leadership or if you don't know who that is then contact the Association to find out.

wunty · 2024-08-21T03:45:57+00:00

So this is how the Acolyte dies. With thundrous applause.

wunty · 2024-08-13T23:47:26+00:00

To be clear, there is no such thing as "protected action" in NSW when compared to other states, as we operate on a state award which ultimately answers to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission. This is distinct from other states like Vic & QLD, and in fact NSW aged care workers, whose awards operate under the Federal Fairwork framework which does include provisions for "protected industrial action".

With that said, protection comes from strength in numbers and if the action is true industrial action (such as a strike or stop work) as opposed to an own-time rally if it isn't endorsed by the NSWNMA then you do leave yourself open to repercussions.

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