19 October 2020
The ANMF (SA Branch) has reacted with dismay to reports of a reduction in nursing numbers in South Australia, describing it as 'pure madness' during a time of pandemic emergency.
“Media reports of more than 100 fewer nurses in public hospitals compared to this time last year are simply gobsmacking at a time when just today there were 84 people waiting for a bed across Adelaide’s metropolitan emergency departments,’’ ANMF (SA Branch) CEO/Secretary Adj. Associate Professor Elizabeth Dabars AM said.
Even Minister for Health Stephen Wade was reported in the media as admitting there were fewer nurses and midwives.
“At a time when ramping is rife and hospitals are over-stretched, over-capacity and struggling to meet demand, any cut to nursing numbers is pure madness,’’ Ms Dabars said.
More than 100 voluntary separation packages (VSPs) have been offered to nurses across our metropolitan hospitals this year. The VSPs are part of a cost-cutting exercise implemented last year across the SA health system and, for a while, put on hold during the early part of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Given the chronic understaffing in aged care services and the additional strain on the health system of new services such as COVID testing clinics, it beggars belief that this State Government could allow nursing numbers to plummet,’’ Ms Dabars said.
“One wonders how our hospitals will ever hope to cope in the unthinkable advent of a second wave of COVID-19.’’