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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2020-04-28 Daily Xml
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Public Hospital Nurses

The Hon. E.S. BOURKE (14:48): Thank you, Mr President. I was getting to my feet. Thank you for your guidance; I appreciate it. My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding public health. How many casual public hospital nurses were without pay and without shifts over the past month? Have all casual nurses now been offered shifts and pay with the resumption of elective surgery? Why did the government not offer public hospital casual nurses shifts in the call centre or in the contact tracing unit to use their skills and protect their livelihoods?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:49): It is the case that the public health system has experienced an overall reduction in activity levels over recent weeks, especially as a result of the appropriate surgery direction.

The Hon. E.S. Bourke interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Ms Bourke, do you want to hear the answer to your question or not? Otherwise we will move on. Minister.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: The Leader of the Opposition, I don't need your help. Minister.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: Thank you, Mr President. Local health networks have been redirecting their staff to areas of need and have focused on retraining staff to meet surge capacity as and when that is needed, and it was a privilege to be at the Lyell McEwin Hospital today to meet with ICU nurses and general nurses, a number of whom have been involved in the upskilling program.

We have had 400 staff, nurses and midwives, right across the hospital network, take the opportunity to do training to upskill their COVID-19 response. There have been another about 100 nurses who have gone into what I would call non-hospital roles—roles such as airport screening, contact tracing, and medical support for people in detention such as the two plane loads of international arrivals.

The flexibility of the nursing workforce in these times is greatly appreciated, particularly in the situation where we have had to stop non-urgent elective surgery. Local health networks are monitoring activity levels daily, and a range of initiatives have been established to both anticipate a surge workforce as well as assist our casual workforce. For example, the Women's and Children's Hospital has been training 80 nurses in intensive care skills, and a number of these nurses have come from the casual nursing pool.

The contact tracing centre has been assisted by the Commissioner for Public Sector Employment and the nursing pool to meet its needs in this regard, depending on the skills required, and I invite casual nurses currently involved in local health network casual pools to put their names forward through one of these processes.

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