Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Tracey Martin: Aged Care Association Chief Executive on concerns Labour’s nurse policy could shift staff pressures to aged care

Transcript

Tracey Martin: Aged Care Association Chief Executive on concerns Labour’s nurse policy could shift staff pressures to aged care · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Labour's promising every graduate nurse a job in the public
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: health system if they are elected. So it's around 2,400
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: grads a year guaranteed an offer, most filling existing vacancies
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and staff turnover. Tracey Martin, Aged Care Association Chief Executive
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: with me this morning. Tracey, good morning.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: You're worried about the nurses getting pinched from aged care,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: are you?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Well, historically, we know that that's what will happen. So Generally,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: when the hospitals stop hiring, which is what they've not
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: been hiring for the last three years, our workforce is stable,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: which is good because we take the weight off hospitals
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: when people need to be discharged over 65. But with
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: this policy, what's going to happen is, well, unless it's
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: well thought out, unless we're at the table, and unless
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: we are part of what is the publicly funded system
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: that is going to employ these new graduate nurses, which
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: we want to employ them, then the workforce is going
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: to be skewed towards hospitals. And our sector, who takes
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: people out of hospitals to look after them for the
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: New Zealand government, will find themselves once again struggling to
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: get nurses.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Because your guys are paid less. So the nurses will go, well,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: if I'm guaranteed a job here and it pays me,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I'll take it to hell with aged care.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly, exactly.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: So are they, you said, hopefully it's well thought out,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: And hopefully they're talking to us. Have they spoken to you?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: And is it well thought out?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know how well thought it out is
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: because they haven't spoken to us. So, you know, I'm very,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: very keen to have a conversation about we absolutely want
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: to keep our New Zealand trade nurses. Nobody has an
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: argument with that. But when you start to get inside
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the workforce in this way with no workforce plan, current government,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: no government has had a workforce plan for our sector
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: for a long time. So, you know, there's a few
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: things that need to be put in place before you
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: roll something like this out.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Tracey, good to have you on the show this morning.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Tracey Martin, Aged Care Association Chief Executive.