Hospice nurses say they feel “betrayed” by the government.
Photo: RNZ / Yiting Lin
No guarantee government will release funding for hospices to deliver on pay equity
Hospices say some already laying off staff and cutting services due to underfunding
Hospice nurses say they feel “betrayed” by the government
Nurses working for hospices and Plunket fear that even if they succeed in their new pay equity claims, they may never see the money.
The two workforces on Monday became the first to file claims under the stricter requirements rushed in ahead of the Budget – but the government has made it clear it is under no obligation to supply the money.
Palliative care nurse Fiona McDougal loves her work at Wellington’s Mary Potter Hospice.
“I feel like I can finally do the job I trained for 40 years ago, providing the kind of holistic wrap around care that’s just not possible in an acute setting.”
However, she understood colleagues with young families and mortgages opted to work in hospitals, where pay was up to 20 percent higher.
“I do know people who have got two part-time jobs, sometimes here, sometimes in another organisation, just to keep the money coming in.”
The pay equity claims for hospice and Plunket staff brought by the Nurses Organisation were on the point of being settled when the government introduced tough new criteria just before the Budget in May.
In total, 33 claims were scrapped, saving the government just under $13 billion over four years.
Fiona McDougal said it left hospice workers feeling undervalued.
“I think there is a feeling of hurt and disappointment and betrayal actually towards the government because things were very well progressed, and then it felt like a sneaky, underhand way in which they changed the rules, and moved the goal posts.”
Minister must agree to release funding
Hospice New Zealand chief executive Wayne Naylor.
Photo: RNZ/ Ruth Hill
It cost $226 million to run hospice services last year, with just half of that provided by the government.
Hospice New Zealand chief executive Wayne Naylor said the organisation had already spent about $100,000 on coordinating the response to the previous claim on behalf of the country’s hospices.
“It does seem like groundhog day being almost forced to start again, although we’re hoping not to start at the very beginning. But it is disappointing.”
Hospice nurses deserved fair pay – but the new regime was much riskier for “the funded sector”: community services like hospices, which received government funding for contracted services.
Once the union and the employer agreed on a fair settlement, the minister would have to sign off on Health NZ actually releasing the money and there were no guarantees for that, Naylor said.
“There’s no contingency fund like previously, that was scrapped for the funded sector when they changed the legisation.
“If the minister does not the release the funding, the cost will fall back on hospices, which will have no choice but to go to the community yet again.”
Dwindling funding was already forcing some hospices to lay off staff, leave positions unfilled and cut services for patients, Naylor said.
One hospice had replaced some registered nurses in its in-patient unit with healthcare assistants to save cash – and that was putting pressure back on hospitals.
“So they’re still providing in patient care but they can’t take so many complex patients as they used to do, so patients are ending up stuck in hospital or in the emergency department.”
Relying on cake stalls to pay staff
Mary Potter Hospice chief executive Tony Paine
Photo: RNZ/ Ruth Hill
Mary Potter Hospice chief executive Tony Paine said he often struggled to fill vacancies because the pay on offer was so much lower.
“It’s ridiculous having a health system where your workfoce is funded in two fundamentally different ways.
“So in the community sector, we’re having to rely on cake stalls to pay our staff – while across the road, they’re 100 percent funded by the Crown.”
Under the new rules, hospice nurses could not use Health NZ nurses as a comparison.
They needed to find a “comparator” male-dominated workforce with similar education level and responsibilities within the same sector.
Naylor said the hospice nurse pay equity claim would be a test of the new rules.
“Is it actually possible to complete a pay equity evaluation? Or have they set the bar too high or made it too difficult to actually do that? In which case the legislation will prevent any pay equity settlement from happening.
Meanwhile, Health NZ nurses – who went on strike twice last week – were fighting to retain their own pay equity gains of a few years ago, which they say were already being eroded.
Health Minister Simeon Brown previously told RNZ Health NZ had increased funding to the hospice sector by 3 percent this year and was working with hospices on a sustainable funding approach for providing palliative care.
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