ANMF Calls For Health Minister to Help Combat Australia's Nursing Crisis
Monday, 24 February, 2014
The ANMF is calling on Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton to work with stakeholders to combat Australia's nursing crisis, following the release of a new report on health issues suffered by Australia's ageing nursing workforce.
The report, in which Southern Cross University surveyed more than 5000 nurses across Australia, found that 40 per cent are now aged 50 and over, 30 per cent suffered a chronic illness and that stress and obesity are also impacting on their health.
ANMF Federal Secretary, Lee Thomas, said: “This is a real warning that unmanageable workloads, attacks on working conditions and the ongoing lack of employment for nursing graduates is taking its toll on frontline nurses and midwives.
“There is a growing shortage of nurses and midwives across Australia and it’s only going to get worse unless we have qualified nursing and midwifery graduates coming through the ranks to replace them.
“As a community, we must address the issues, the consequence of which we see reported in this survey. It is imperative that nurses and midwives can go to work assured they are safe from violence and abuse, that their workloads are manageable and have access to regular breaks.
“By 2025 there will be a shortage of 109,000 nurses. In aged care alone, the workforce must triple in size by 2050, to meet the challenges of Australia’s rapidly ageing population and our nurses too are ageing at a rapid rate.
“That’s why we need to start building a nursing and midwifery workforce for the future, giving graduates the education and experience they need to become the senior nurses and midwives of tomorrow and ensuring those already in the workforce are healthy, well remunerated and retained.
“Australia urgently needs viable solutions to ensure we have a future nursing and midwifery workforce to replace current nursing staff retiring over the next 15 to 20 years otherwise it’s inevitable that the quality of care delivered across the health and aged care settings will suffer.”
The ANMF is calling on Mr Dutton to respond to the survey results by meeting with the ANMF and other stakeholders to urgently develop a workforce strategy to combat Australia’s nursing crisis
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