Tweed Nurses stretched in hospital crisis

NURSES in the Tweed are complaining of being stretched to the limit as multiple vacancies remain unfilled.

NURSES in the Tweed are complaining of being stretched to the limit as multiple vacancies remain unfilled including child hearing and men’s health specialists.

Patients face being put on lengthy waiting lists or left in limbo as Northern NSW Local Health District workers anxiously await the release of a long-awaited state health report.

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Storage space is hard to come by at the overwhelmed Tweed Heads Hospital, says Intensive Care Unit Director and Medical Staff Council co-chairman Dr Mike Lindley-Jones.

The staffing issue comes as nurses and other medical staff struggle to work around a shortfall of beds, space and equipment at the ageing Tweed Hospital.

Nurse and Tweed Community Nurses branch (of NSWNMA) secretary Rosalie Scott said her stressed colleagues staged an unpaid protest outside the hospital on Thursday.

The Health Services Union and separate NSW Nurses and Midwives Association called on NSW Government to release the Community Health report and provide certainty to workers.

Ms Scott told the Bulletin patients were being affected by staff shortages, particularly due to lack of replacements for departed specialist nurses.

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Equipment lines the wards at Tweed Heads Hospital.

“There are numerous positions that are vacant and haven’t been recruited permanently,” she said.

“We had two audiometry nurses who retired in the last two months. Those audiometry services target children before school age.

“Indigenous children are at high risk of having hearing problems. If that’s not picked up early they run into difficulties when they get to school.”

Ms Scott said a third nurse was trained to assist but was mostly stuck staffing another position

“That means these children are on long waiting lists or they don’t get to see anyone at all. That’s a target group at significant risk,” she said.

“The men’s health position hasn’t been recruited to for 12 months and it’s the only men’s health position in the Local Health District.

“What happens to all the men who have a diagnosis of prostate cancer?”

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Bits and pieces of various equipment scattered through the Tweed Heads Hospital premises.

Ms Scott has been unable to verify the exact number of positions remaining unfilled, or how many full-time jobs have been switched to “rolling three month contracts” with “no certainty”.

“Unfortunately, we’ve asked for that information but it has not been released,” she said.

“The other thing that’s telling is, we’ve got numerous specialist positions in Northern NSW Health that aren’t being backfilled.”

Ms Scott said the district’s funding model was “activity based” and she feared “if specialist nurses are not being backfilled and activity is low it reflects the funding made”.

She believed community health management roles have also been left vacant and said the situation more broadly was “a mess”.

Health Services Union organiser Peter Kelly called on the government to “treat the workers with respect and show them what the intent is and release the draft document”.

The health district did not comment by deadline and flagged it would respond today.