PerthNorg

To Hon. James Andrew McGinty MLA

OPEN LETTER

To The Honorable  James Andrew McGinty MLA

Dear Sir,

Recently while on the election campaign you have pledged to increase the number of nurses employed in the Western Australian Health sector by more than 100 in the first year of the Labor Governments next term if re-elected. As a Registered Nurse currently working within the system I am curious as to how and where you are going to find these extra nurses. Nothing that has been done in the past 2 terms has been able to entice nurses on this scale back into the work force, and with other industries offering larger salaries and more family friendly or "sociable" hours, nurses are resigning in numbers far greater than the Health Department currently is willing to acknowledge.

When this is added to the current level of discontent among the majority of my colleagues with a new layer of bureaucracy created as a direct order from you as the Health Minister. The layer I am referring to is one of your pet projects "NurseWest".

This  new level has done nothing to help nurses or hospitals and is regularly to blame for direct shortages on the floor where it really counts and unfortunately as either a nurse or a taxpayer I am unable to find out exactly how much this new beast is costing the health department. Adding insult to the injuries of nurses is the new ruling by the Health Department via NurseWest, that if a nurse is unable to attend work for any reason, such as wakes sick, or as the primary care giver of children receives a call from the school to collect their child etc etc, and provides less than 4 hours notice, that nurse will have $400 deducted from their wages. The reverse is that if NurseWest provides less than 2 hours notice that she/he is no longer required for a particular shift, the nurse will be credited with 1 hours wage (approx $30 -$40) which would be insufficient to cover the cost of the already paid for before or after school care which you probably are unaware of will not be reimbursed.

I ask again, with conditions the way they are in our hospitals and nurses being treated as above, where and how are you going to keep this election promise, or will it go the way of so many before them, ignored and obfuscated once you are again in Parliament.

jj