By Broede Carmody and Brittany Busch
A second major Melbourne hospital is cutting the hours of junior nurses, prompting calls for the health minister to issue a please-explain after having handed the state’s health services an extra $1.5 billion in funding.
The Royal Melbourne Hospital has told its 2024 intake of early-career nurses to brace for fewer hours next year after The Age revealed on Tuesday that hundreds at Alfred Health had their work slashed from a 32-hour working week to 24 hours.
Nursing graduates at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Parkville have been told to brace for fewer work hours next year. Credit: Justin McManus
Two Royal Melbourne sources familiar with the discussions, who spoke to The Age on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly, said managers had flagged a 0.6 full-time equivalent (FTE) workload from next year for current graduates – down from a 0.8 workload.
A 0.8 FTE role equates to a four-day working week, while 0.6 FTE equals three days.
One source said the reason given by managers was “limited positions available”, while the second source said managers had defended the decision on the basis that public nurses had received a pay rise under the recent deal struck between the nursing union and the state government.
“Current graduates made it abundantly clear that 0.6 FTE does not provide adequate earnings to live under the current cost-of-living pressures,” the second source said.
“Despite this, the hospital has advised current graduates that they are receiving a pay increase under the new EBA, and that combined with that, they are able to pick up shifts to make up for the lost FTE. However, shift fill-ins are invariably filled by pool or agency nurses.”
A Royal Melbourne Hospital spokesperson confirmed the health service was in “open discussions” with its 2024 graduates.
The hospital said there would be no reduction in working hours for its 2025 intake.
“The RMH will continue to deliver exceptional care for our community,” the spokesperson said.
Madeleine Harradence, acting secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Victoria (ANMF), said the union was urgently seeking further information, and would act quickly to represent affected members.
“ANMF is extremely disappointed by this short-sighted approach taken unilaterally by both The Alfred and RMH executive,” Harradence said.
The union says as many as 184 junior nurses at the Royal Melbourne could be affected.
“Graduate nurses are a critical pipeline for the future nursing and midwifery workforce, and the quality of the workplace support and treatment they receive in the early years of their career is an indicator for the likelihood they will stay in nursing or midwifery throughout their career,” Harradence said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the minister needed to intervene now that two hospitals planned to cut hours for junior nurses.
“Graduate nurses are a critical component of Victoria’s current healthcare workforce,” she said. “They need to be supported and gain the experience so that we have a workforce for the future.
“The minister must immediately intervene and ask hospital CEOs why this was allowed to occur.”
Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said on Thursday afternoon that she had asked her department to seek information from Alfred Health and Royal Melbourne Hospital.
“As employers, hospitals are legally obliged to consult with the workforce and their industrial representatives, as they are doing,” she said.
“We’ve given our hospitals record funding this year so patients can continue to get the best possible care and young nurses can continue to get the hands-on experience they need.”
Three government and Health Department sources, speaking anonymously to freely discuss internal matters, said there was widespread fury that the graduate cuts came off the back of a bruising battle with hospital chief executives over their funding arrangements.
While the May budget tipped a record $13 billion into the public health system, hospitals were also told at the time that their future budgets would be locked in for the first time since the pandemic, with no top-up spending.
Health insiders warned that the new rules could lead to bed closures, surgery delays and even the end of some breast screening and kidney dialysis services.
After a public backlash, the government announced in August an extra $1.5 billion in health funding, prompting a missive from Treasurer Tim Pallas that money could not keep flowing as it had.
A government source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to speak publicly, said the new contracts – on which graduates were expected to earn a base salary of more than $40,000 a year – would increase pressure on a workforce already dealing with stress, anxiety and burnout.
“Adding financial stress in a cost-of-living crisis is just inhumane,” the source said. “I just don’t see how a grad would be able to support themselves on that much money.
“We talk so much about needing to support this emerging workforce. Grads are just about to start, hopefully, a long career, and the very first impression that they get is that they’re not valued, and that their hours can just be cut.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of nurses and midwives at St Vincent’s Private Hospital walked off the job on Thursday in what the union described as unprecedented industrial action by the private hospital’s employees.
Nurses and midwives from St Vincent’s Private Hospital protest on Thursday.Credit: Wayne Taylor
Dressed in red and waving placards, they marched from the hospital’s Fitzroy site to Carlton Gardens, chanting “safe staffing” and “union power”. They were joined by colleagues from the East Melbourne, Kew and Werribee campuses.
Management and union delegates have been locked in enterprise bargaining talks since June.
St Vincent’s chief executive Janine Loader has said she wants her hospital’s nurses and midwives to be the best paid of any private hospital in Victoria. However, a sticking point for the union has been nurse-to-patient ratios.
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