Launceston General Hospital: Wild strike as manager speaks out

A manager at beleaguered LGH says she backs her striking staff as the facility ground to a halt for half an hour on Thursday. It comes as the state government puts a beefed-up offer on the table.

A manager at beleaguered Launceston General Hospital, who participated in Wednesday’s Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Tasmania strike action at the facility, says staff are leaving in droves.

The manager, who asked not to be named due to fears of reprisal, told the Mercury, “I stand with my staff.”

She said LGH staff were “demanding” staffing levels rise to the state government determined benchmark, which they currently weren’t.

“Staff are sad, worn-out, don’t feel heard and they are leaving in droves,” she said.

“We’ve lost many, many senior staff.”

The strike was preceded by Premier Jeremy Rockliff extending an olive branch to the dissatisfied workforce.

He offered a suite of improvements, including $2000 sign-on bonuses to get recently departed staff back into the system, bringing forward negotiations for a new Nurses and Midwives Wages enterprise bargaining agreement, and trailing nurse coaches on public hospital wards.

“It is by working together taking a collaborative approach that we can best address these important issues. It was a constructive meeting that we had (on Tuesday) with the ANMF,” he said.

Speaking at Wednesday’s strike, ANMF Tasmania branch secretary Emily Shepherd said it was a “challenging decision” for staff to strike.

“It shows how widely and deeply felt the issues are. Conditions inside (this hospital) are worse than the conditions outside are,” she said as rain and wind buffeted the striking workers.

Ms Shepherd described Mr Rockliff’s proposed deal as having “real positives” within it.

“There is an opportunity to work collaboratively,” she said.

Ms Shepherd said ANMF Tasmania would “consider suspending industrial activity” in response to Mr Rockliff’s offer, once the union has “appropriately” consulted its membership.

The Launceston General Hospital strike follows on from similar industrial action last week at Royal Hobart Hospital.

Payment, training, recruitment: Rockliff’s offer to health workers

THE state government has extended a peace deal to nurses seeking relief from crushing workloads.

Premier and Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff on Wednesday unveiled a number of measures designed to ease the pressure on the health workforce amid rolling industrial action affecting the state’s public hospitals.

Nurses at the Launceston General Hospital were the latest to walk off the job after a brief strike at the Royal Hobart Hospital last week.

Mr Rockliff said the government was listening to its workforce.

“I’ve met with, I’ve spoken to nurses, midwives, doctors, allied health professionals and I thank them with enormous gratitude for the work that they have done and very challenging and arduous conditions, particularly over the course of the last two years throughout the pandemic,” he said.

“I recognise this has been a tough time, irrespective of the pandemic and the pressures that Covid has placed on our health system.”

Mr Rockliff said over the last 12 month, 900 new staff had been recruited into the Tasmanian health system, including 300 nurses.

The government has already agreed to pay nurses in hospitals that remain above Covid escalation level 3 for more than 30 days and $60 a day allowance on top of their salary.

The package offered to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation on Tuesday and announced by the Premier on Wednesday includes:

• A Return-to-work bonus payment of $2,000 pro-rata for any APHRA registered health professional that returns to the frontline who has resigned in the 12 months prior to 31 July 2022;
• Reforms to the Statewide Nursing Transition to Practice Model, providing a standing job offer for all UTas nursing graduates providing them with a pathway to permanency, accelerated probationary periods and removing the requirement for individual interviews;
• A trial of Clinical Nurse Coaches on public hospital wards, which has been requested by the ANMF. These coaches will mentor and support early career nurses;
• Establishing a Strategic Nursing Recruitment and Retention Working Group to bring together key health officials and union representatives to deliver new workforce modelling to manage pandemic peaks and a range of other recruitment initiatives;
• Commencing early negotiations for a new Nurses and Midwives Wages enterprise bargaining agreement.

“It’s no one simple fix,” Mr Rockliff said. “There are a multitude of areas we need to address when it comes to alleviating the pressure on our health system and there are a multitude of pressures.

“It is by working together taking a collaborative approach that we can best address these important issues. It was a constructive meeting that we had yesterday with the ANMF.

“Of course, I would like the strike action to cease. I believe that, at the end of the day, strike action takes people out of our hospitals that are already under considerable pressure.”

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