The Aged Care Association says Labour’s commitment to
guarantee jobs for graduate nurses is welcome recognition
that New Zealand needs to secure and grow its nursing
workforce but warns the policy must not unintentionally make
it even harder for aged residential care to recruit
nurses.
“Aged care is health care. Any workforce
policy designed to strengthen New Zealand’s health system
must recognise the 40,000 aged residential care beds that
are providing healthcare to older New Zealanders every day,”
Aged Care Association Chief Executive Hon Tracey Martin
says.
“We absolutely support getting our graduate
nurses into jobs. But if the guarantee directs those nurses
predominantly into Health New Zealand while aged residential
care continues to compete with different pay and employment
conditions, the Government will simply shift the workforce
pressure from one part of the health system to
another.”
The Association says the proposed increase
in recruitment subsidies for primary and community care
could help aged care providers recruit graduates, provided
aged residential care remains fully included. But
recruitment incentives alone will not solve the longstanding
pay disparity between Health New Zealand and aged
residential care.
“We have already seen what happens
when the pay gap between hospitals and aged care grows.
Nurses understandably move to where the pay and conditions
are better. Unless aged care funding moves alongside public
hospital nursing remuneration, that gap will simply open up
again.”
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
Ms Martin says the consequences extend well
beyond the aged care sector.
“New Zealand’s public
hospitals have around 10,000 beds. Aged residential care has
around 40,000. We are also going to need another 9,000 to
12,000 aged residential care beds as our population
ages.
“You can put more nurses into hospitals, but you
still only have one person in each hospital bed. If there is
nowhere appropriate for an older person to go once, they no
longer need acute hospital care, that bed remains occupied
and the next patient cannot get into it.
“That is why
aged residential care is such an important part of hospital
capacity. Our sector provides 24-hour nursing and care,
takes people out of hospitals, prevents avoidable hospital
admissions and provides the long-term care that hospitals
were never designed to provide.
“Anything that reduces
our access to nurses ultimately reduces our ability to take
pressure off hospitals.”
The Aged Care Association is
calling on Labour to confirm that aged residential care
providers will be fully included in its graduate nurse
employment pathway and eligible for the increased
recruitment subsidies.
It is also seeking a commitment
that government funding for aged residential care will
maintain nursing pay relativity with Health New Zealand,
rather than allowing another significant pay gap to
develop.
“If the objective is to strengthen the health
workforce, then we need to think about where nurses are
needed across the whole health system.
“We cannot
solve the hospital workforce problem by creating a bigger
aged care workforce problem.
“Aged care is health
care, and workforce policy needs to reflect
that.”
© Scoop Media
Discussion about this post