A long-term push to mandate nurse-to-patient ratios in NSW hospitals is likely to fail after the opposition supported the state government and refused to back the measure amid a bitter industrial dispute.
The battle over pay and conditions between the government and the nurses’ union is expected to escalate following Labor’s decision not to support a recommendation to mandate increased staffing levels.
NSW nurses walked off the job on March 31, demanding staffing ratios and better pay.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Nurse-to-patient ratios, along with increased pay, are central to the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association demands from the government, which has resulted in statewide industrial action with more strikes likely.
Union officials have stressed that, while they are pushing for a 4.75 per cent pay claim, they are prioritising a demand for one nurse per four patients. Labor has taken a staff ratio policy for nurses to two state elections.
Nurses and midwives walked off the job on March 31, which followed industrial action by teachers and rail workers. The NSW government is under significant pressure to lift its wage cap of 2.5 per cent in its June budget.
Less than a year after supporting an upper house motion to mandate nursing ratios, Labor MPs backflipped as part of their response to a parliamentary inquiry focused on NSW’s troubled rural and regional hospitals.
The inquiry into the state’s country hospitals, which exposed shocking allegations of dysfunction within the health system, will table its report to parliament on Thursday.
Committee members Greens MP Cate Faehrmann and Animal Justice MP Emma Hurst proposed that the inquiry recommend mandated staffing levels in regional and rural hospitals. Labor voted against their motions.
A spokesman for Labor leader Chris Minns said the opposition would not allow other parties to dictate its election policies and there were no up-to-date costings for increased staff ratios.
The spokesman said Minns had not committed to the policy and had made it clear on several occasions that Labor would need to undertake further interrogation of the proposal before supporting it.
Opposition leader Chris Minns.Credit: James Brickwood
However, several senior Labor sources – who are not permitted to speak publicly under party rules – said the opposition was preparing for the possibility of winning government in March 2023.
One source said it was “sensible” that Labor was portraying itself as disciplined fiscal managers, while another said the party needed to send a clear message to voters that it was not beholden to the union movement.
NSW Health currently uses a patient ratio system of “nursing hours per patient day”, which was introduced following strikes under the previous Labor government. The health department argues that the system is more flexible because staffing levels can be adjusted to reflect changing needs.
Victoria legislated a minimum of one nurse to four patients in 2001. In 2016, the Queensland government endorsed a minimum of one nurse to four patients for morning and afternoon shifts and one nurse for seven patients for night shifts in the state’s public health services.
NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association general secretary Brett Holmes said the union would work to convince Labor that mandated ratios were critical.
“We will continue to talk to Labor about what it would take to deliver nurse-to-patient ratios and the consequences of not delivering them,” Holmes said.
Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the opposition had abandoned a policy it took to the 2015 and 2019 state elections.
“Everything that NSW Labor has done to date has led nurses to believe that they were backing a different form of ratios to what currently exists,” Hazzard said.
“To quietly backflip on something that they have so strongly backed the union puts on a big question mark over the integrity of NSW Labor.”
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