Nurses and midwives at seven private hospitals risk having up to a third of their pay docked if they continue to refuse to mop floors, fill in paperwork, deliver meals or empty bins – a dramatic escalation in a long-running pay dispute with embattled hospital giant Healthscope.
Australia’s second-largest private hospital operator told staff at seven of its NSW facilities on Thursday that it would cut the pay of nurses and midwives refusing to perform any non-clinical duties as part of an ongoing campaign for improved pay and conditions.
Nurses and midwives at seven Healthscope hospitals in NSW are refusing to strip beds, empty linen skips and bins, and mop floors.
Since Tuesday, NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) members at Campbelltown Private, Northern Beaches, Nepean Private, Newcastle Private, Norwest Private, Sydney Southwest Private and Lady Davidson Private hospitals have declined to perform tasks “which do not form part of a nurse’s or midwife’s direct clinical duties”.
This includes mopping and dusting floors, pushing or moving beds, carrying patient luggage, emptying bins and linen skips, delivering meals, answering phones and stripping beds.
The Fair Work Commission has since approved further action, meaning nurses and midwives can, from Friday, refuse to perform administrative data entry and paperwork tasks that could be completed by non-nursing staff.
The tribunal shut down an earlier attempt to impose a 7.5 per cent pay reduction across the board, but Healthscope came back on Thursday with harsher penalties of up to 33.3 per cent for some roles.
Northern Beaches Hospital nurse and union representative Sheridan Brady said that by docking pay, Healthscope was admitting that nurses and midwives were routinely expected to perform tasks other than caring for patients.
“We are not cleaners or wardsmen or kitchen hands … we should not be sacrificing precious nursing time with our patients,” Brady said.
Northern Beaches union delegate Sheridan Brady (middle) with fellow NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association Healthscope delegates.
Brady said many workers could not afford to lose pay leading into Christmas. “This is an act of corporate greed,” she said.
Nurses and midwives employed by Healthscope are demanding the same 15 per cent single-year pay rise sought by their public hospital counterparts.
They are also seeking an increase in night-duty rates, on-call allowances and the mandated staff-to-patient ratios being implemented in the state’s public hospitals.
A Healthscope spokesman said the company had made what it considered “a market-leading wage offer” to its NSW nurses and midwives, and rejected the union’s claim that the banned tasks were beyond those expected of nurses and midwives when caring for patients.
“These tasks represent a minor component of our nurses’ and midwives’ overall scope of work,” he said. “Payments [will be] deducted to reflect the fact that this set of tasks is not being performed.”
Healthscope faces rising operating costs and a mounting debt pile following its $4.1 billion takeover by Canadian investment giant Brookfield in 2019.
As well as negotiating with workers, the company is locked in an ugly funding dispute with private health insurers. Bupa this week offered doctors up to $500 to take their patients to other facilities after its 4 million members lost cover at Healthscope’s 38 hospitals.
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