Source: New Zealand Nurses Organisation
NZNO members working in the emergency department (ED) at North Shore Hospital have declared a state of emergency due to unsafe staffing levels resulting in ongoing overcrowding.
In a letter sent to Te Whatu Ora chief executive Dr Dale Bramley last Wednesday (attached), signed by dozens of the hospital’s ED nurses, health care assistants and other staff, workers say they can no longer remain silent while unsafe staffing puts patients, health workers and the community at risk every day.
North Shore NZNO delegate and ED nurse Jean Moor says: “Overcrowding in emergency departments put patients in harm’s way and inevitably will lead to more serious situations such as fatalities.
“We have worked at more than 200% or 300% capacity on certain days, and I cannot recall any recent day when the ED was not running at over 100% capacity.
“Having to treat our mothers, fathers, aunties and uncles in the hospital corridor is unacceptable, and just should not be happening.”
Jean Moor says the biggest culprit in creating this unbearable situation was the hiring freeze introduced by Te Whatu Ora in 2024.
The 2025 FTE calculations identified that North Shore ED requires an additional 25 nursing FTE to meet patient demand and provide safe care, but no funding has been made available by Te Whatu Ora.
“Our employer says it has neither the authority nor the budget to recruit the additional FTE our department requires. This tells us the problem stems from higher up,” Jean Moor says.
“We have literally submitted hundreds of incident reports documenting the risks and consequences of unsafe staffing without anything being done.”
In response to the letter, Dale Bramley’s office makes an offer that’s less than half of what is needed in North Shore ED and does not even specify it is for the hospital.
“If we have to be honest this solution is akin to reshuffling deck chairs on the Titanic and we all know how that ended,” Jean Moor says.