Nurse Maude upset at union tactics

Nurse Maude upset at union tactics

Nurse Maude Chief Executive Officer, Ingrid Thomas is disappointed that the New Zealand Nurses Organisation is asking the Association’s non-striking nurses to abandon patients.

The move follows an email today from the NZNO to the Association’s nursing staff who are not part of the proposed strike action on August 30. It urges these nurses to support their striking union-member colleagues by not agreeing to assist with patient care.

“I am extremely disappointed that the union is prepared to use our patients as pawns in this dispute. For a union to ‘urge’ non-striking nurses not to provide what has been identified as essential patient care, is against everything in a nurse’s duty of care,” Mrs Thomas says.

Mrs Thomas says it was appalling that the e-mail had been sent to the nurses on the eve of the Association going into mediation in a bid to settle the dispute tomorrow. “We have always been genuine in our endeavours to settle the contract and to go into mediation in good faith,’’ she says.

“We understand the dilemma that nurses face. However, it is inexcusable that the union would put pressure on our nurses, at this stage in the dispute, not to assist in taking care of patients” she adds.

“I’ve worked in the health sector for many years and this is the first time I have faced such an unethical situation. It is inappropriate to ‘use’ patients in this way. I object strongly to that.” Mrs Thomas says Nurse Maude began preparing contingency plans for industrial action as soon as it learned that its NZNO nurses might take industrial action.

“Patients have always been our priority and will continue to be so,” she says.

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