Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Kerri Nuku: Nurses Organisation President on the lack of staff needed to meet the healthcare targets

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Kerri Nuku: Nurses Organisation President on the lack of staff needed to meet the healthcare targets · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We'll get our first glimpse of how the health sector
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: is performing and meeting the government's targets by Christmas. The
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Health Minister, doctor Shane at Letti, released more detail on
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: them yesterday.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: These are ambitious targets and what I've said before is
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  Speaker 2: that a number of these targets were hard for the
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  Speaker 2: previous government. You know they're going to be hard for
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  Speaker 2: me too.
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  Speaker 1: So currently Health New Zealand will have to find the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: funding within baselines to do this, and there are some groups,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: specialist groups who disagree. I think that that's wrong. Katie
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Nookho is with us. She's the New Zeala Nurses Organization President. Carrie.
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  Speaker 1: Good morning, good morning, thanks for being with us. What
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  Speaker 1: is your issue with these targets and the way they're
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: going about doing them.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Well, it seems to be that it's fine to have
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  Speaker 2: amvicious plans, but if you don't have the people and
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the resources to implement it, then any good plan will fail.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: And this is what it seems to be that we're
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  Speaker 2: seeing here.
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  Speaker 1: Do how when you say we don't have the resources,
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  Speaker 1: you're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: Nurses, the whole of workforce. It's not just nurses that
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: have said that we're understaffed and the health system is
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  Speaker 2: chronically underfunded. It is doctors, it is visios, that is
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  Speaker 2: the rest of the health workforce.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Is it not good to have a target just to have,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you know, as you say, have something to aspire to.
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  Speaker 2: And I think we agree with what the minister said.
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  Speaker 2: He said that every dollar is spent on health is precious.
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  Speaker 2: But the government health targets measures process, not outcomes, and
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  Speaker 2: they're centered mainly around waiting this and access and flow
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  Speaker 2: through the system. But if we fail to look at
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  Speaker 2: the reasons for the blockages and the chokash points and
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  Speaker 2: the delays within the systems now, which is workforce and resourcing,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: then we're going to fail to execute any ambitious targets.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And that is the problem here. We've had a system
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: that's been chronically underfunded for years and chronically understaffed.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Our nursing vacancy, though is down from twelve to fifteen
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: percent to six percent, is what the.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Government is saying. That is not the reality of what
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: nurses are feeling on the work front and the patients engagements,
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  Speaker 2: the higher work rates. That is not the picture that
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  Speaker 2: our nurses in reality that are going to work.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Every day face but surely the stats don't lie, do they.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: Well, nor do our nurses that are on the front
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  Speaker 2: line and seeing these really high turnover of patients.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Have we ever had a safe level of nurses in
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: New Zealand now?
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  Speaker 2: And that's part of the problem, right, We've never had
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: like internationally they're introducing what's called news to patient ratios.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: We've never had that type of approach which will set
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  Speaker 2: a standard around how many nurses per patients in the
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  Speaker 2: work place do we need. That's the push, that's the
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  Speaker 2: direction that our organization is saying for the government, let's
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: start to look at implementation around safe nurse to patient
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  Speaker 2: ratio standards.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: All right, Kerrie, thank you very much for your time
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this morning. Really appreciate That's Kerrie Niku, the Nurses Organism
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Action A President. With us for more from News Talks
• 3:03
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