Four and a half years ago I had a memorable 10 days in the Hunter's John Hunter Hospital. It was memorable because of the two operations to remove a cancer on my larynx, and despite the traumas I, strangely perhaps, have pleasant memories of that time. That's because it was the essential and successful process in the cure. But my time there was memorable for one other particular reason, and that was the work of the nurses. Until that time I had had no idea of the level of skill in nursing and of the demands of what is effectively staffing a hospital's front line. One night, too, I watched helplessly as a nurse, a woman alone in the ward at night, was pinned violently against a wall by the legs of a man suffering severe alcohol withdrawal. She was lucky to escape with bruising.
Last week in The Herald I read that 135 nurses at the Lower Hunter's four main hospitals were assaulted at work in the two years to the end of last year. That's an assault every five days. The next day I read that the NSW Nurses Association is fighting a State Government plan to reduce the number of registered nurses in public hospitals, replacing them with nursing assistants. There is a role for nursing assistants, of course, but it should not involve them in the front line of patient treatment, it should not involve them making decisions crucial to a patient's recovery. It is hard to see what the State Government has in mind when the hospital system needs more registered nurses, not fewer.
Everyone who owes at least part of their recovery to the professionalism of nurses, and everyone who thinks they may at some time, should join this fight. You can start here, today. Tell us of your debt to the profession of nursing. Can you throw any light on what's behind the Government's plan?
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