Nurses launch campaign to put pressure on government
The Queensland Nurses Union has launched a campaign to convince the government of the importance of nurses’ work.
The union says rumours about job and service cuts are unsettling members and lowering morale.
Union secretary Beth Mohle said today the union was launching a positive marketing campaign to remind government of the important role nurses and midwives play in the community.
“The community values this role and governments need to actually fund it appropriately and ensure that nurses and midwives have the necessary power and system to do the job,” Ms Mohle said.
“Even though they say job cuts won’t affect front-line staff like nurses and midwives, we’ve seen on the ground there have been examples where that is not the case.”
If government were to cut funding, Ms Mohle said members wouldn’t be able to deliver the quality of care the community deserves.
“If there are budget cuts you need to cut your cloth accordingly. You can’t expect nurses and midwives to do more with less. If an admin or support role is slashed someone’s still got to do that work. So our members are very concerned that will fall back to them.”
Meanwhile, the Health Minister has rejected nurses’ concerns that Queensland’s health system would cut 4,000 jobs as well as a number of services.
Lawrence Springborg said the real concern would be having enough nurses to fill upcoming positions.
“Our workforce is going to be expanding across Queensland as we bring new hospitals on line. And we’re going to see thousands of new health workers, particularly nurses, and the real issue will be a shortage of workforce, not people who don’t have jobs,” he said.