Strike closes 170 beds

By Shaun Inguanzo
DANDENONG Hospital has been forced to close 170 of its 520 beds and cancel 50 cases of elective surgery as a result of industrial action taken by its nurses.
Hospital operator Southern Health this week said it was losing 24 beds a day as Victorian nurses – including those at Dandenong – continued the industrial action which commenced on 17 October.
The Industrial Relations Commission last week ruled that nurses lift their work ban by last Monday morning 22, but under the auspice of the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF), nurses have refused to comply.
This week, Dandenong MP John Pandazopoulos urged nurses to return to work with the understanding that negotiations would continue.
Mr Pandazopoulos said the industrial action cancelling surgery and closing down beds was doing the most harm to the public.
Negotiations between the ANF and the State Government have failed to resolve the issue of pay, with nurses requesting a six per cent pay increase to put them onto an equal platform with nurses in other states.
But the State Government is refusing to budge from its offer of 3.25 per cent, which Mr Pandazopoulos said was the figure most people in the public sector – including politicians – had accepted as pay rises.
ANF federal secretary Ged Kearney said that aside from pay, nurses were also concerned by the Brumby Government’s plan to abolish nurse-patient ratios, which she said were in place to help manage workload.
“It is ratios in Victoria that have attracted so many nurses back into the public system and allowed nurses to provide a high quality of patient care,” Ms Kearney said.
“If ratios are cut nurses will leave the profession and the level of patient care will deteriorate.
“Surely the Brumby Government understands this.”
Southern Health executive director of acute services Siva Sivarajah said that as of 6pm on Monday, the hospital had cancelled 50 cases of elective surgery.
He said the hospital was working hard to keep the impact of the strike to a minimum.
“Southern Health has developed a plan to manage the impact of industrial action at its hospitals,” he said.
“To date, there has been some impact on Southern Health patients and the running of the hospitals.”