By Candice Boyle
WESTERN Health will employ more nurses next year as a result of nine days of strike action across the state.
Extra nurses have been promised to the West among 500 new nursing positions to be rolled out under a new enterprise bargaining agreement. The agreement marked the end of the industrial action that disrupted surgeries and closed beds up until Wednesday.
Almost 50 beds were closed and 66 elective surgeries were cancelled across Western Health facilities before the industrial action was called off. Public affairs manager Anne Learmonth said she was happy negotiations had reached an outcome.
“We can now return to the business of ensuring the best possible care for our patients,” she said.
Ms Learmonth said Western Health staff now faced the challenge of rescheduling the surgeries cancelled during the strike.
“It will take a few weeks to get through all of the elective surgeries that were postponed,” she said. “We have elective surgery every day, so we are rescheduling the postponed surgeries in and around those already scheduled.”
Ms Learmonth said postponed surgeries, included hip and knee replacements, skin grafts, urology and gynecology, would be delivered in the most clinically appropriate timeframe. While the new nursing positions are not expected to be in place in hospitals until next year, Ms Learmonth said the increase was good news for Western Health.
“Our patient numbers are growing across all of the services that we provide, so it is welcome that the number of nurses grow in proportion with that,” she said.
Ms Learmonth said Sunshine Hospital, as the second-busiest emergency department in the state, should see a strong increase in staff.
Australian Nursing Federation Victorian Branch secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said the increase in staff at Sunshine Hospital would ensure safer care for patients who needed emergency assistance in the Sunshine community.
Ms Fitzpatrick said the agreement would also see improved patient ratios in all emergency departments and post-natal and ante-natal areas of hospitals.
