Vic: Hospitals crippled as nurses' bans take hold

AAP General News (Australia)
08-10-2001
Vic: Hospitals crippled as nurses' bans take hold

By Trevor Chappell and Jane Williams

MELBOURNE, Aug 10 AAP - Industrial action by Victorian nurses in a dispute with the
state government over hospital staffing levels had so far closed up to 400 beds, Health
Minister John Thwaites said today.

"This action is unjustified, it's unnecessary, it's harming patients and it's totally
wrong given the huge boost that this government has put into nursing," Mr Thwaites told
reporters.

"We have put $200 million into nursing in the past 12 months, the biggest boost anywhere
in the country."

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) today started to close hospital beds in the
latest development in a long-running dispute with the government over nurse-patient ratios.

The nurses vowed at a stopwork meeting yesterday to close one in every three public
hospital beds.

Tonight, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) was told patients were
waiting on trolleys in emergency wards filled to overflowing as a result of the work bans.

Kevin Bell, QC, for the Department of Human Services, told the commission the nurses'
bans were unlawful, illegal and unsafe.

Mr Bell said patients were unable to get admission to hospitals, there was a backlog
in emergencies wards and patients were unable to access rehabilitation services.

Patients were waiting on trolleys, he said.

"These are circumstances which are seriously impacting on innocent third parties, the
Victorian public ... who have nothing to do with the dispute," he said.

Mr Bell told senior deputy president Ian Watson the bed closures were "palpably injurious
to public interest" and the bans were "outside acceptable bounds of the industrial system".

The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) and the state government have been arguing
since the AIRC set a range of nurse-patient ratios 12 months ago.

Mr Thwaites today said if industrial action continued in defiance of any order from
the AIRC, the government could take legal action in the federal court against the ANF.

"We're hopeful that that won't need to happen because the commission has indicated
that the best course is for the ANF to withdraw the industrial action and conciliate the
matter," Mr Thwaites said.

Asked if the government stood by the nurse-patient ratios set out in the decision of
August last year, Mr Thwaites said the government would abide by whatever the AIRC ordered.

Opposition health spokesman Robert Doyle said the government appeared powerless to
act in resolving the dispute with nurses.

"Remember, John Thwaites in opposition was the man who told us he had all the answers
to the problems in the health system," Mr Doyle told reporters.

"Yet now when it comes time for him to make a decision, to take some action, to actually
do something on behalf of Victorian patients, he seems powerless or at least unable to
act."

Parties in the dispute were continuing tonight to put their cases to the AIRC.

AAP tsc/jmw/jd/gfr/jnb/sb

KEYWORD: NURSES VIC NIGHTLEAD

2001 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.