Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Nursing students

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (19:18): (1314) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Health, and it is in relation to a report that is running as we speak by the Age. It is a very concerning issue. It is around graduate nurses who have had their working hours slashed. This is important because for those graduate nurses to work, they need to get experience and be able to undertake the work they do when they come through and graduate. I am a former nurse of the Alfred, and I understand the experience that you get working on the job, having the experience of senior nurses to assist you, guide you and work through that. What is being reported tonight is that hundreds of graduate nurses at the Alfred are going to have their graduate nursing program hours slashed from a 32-hour working week to just 24 hours. That is going to have a massive impact, as I said, not only on their ability to get the experience but also on the ability of the health service to provide additional assistance when supporting patients and other health workers. There are concerns being raised by the union, and they are saying that the changes have occurred without consultation. They are seeking urgent legal advice and on other aspects around what on earth is going on. I take up the comment from one senior nurse, who said:

How do graduate nurses consolidate their learning, especially at The Alfred – which cares for some of the sickest people in the state – with three shifts a week? I just think it’s appalling …

Experienced nurses have concerns. I worry what will happen when I move on.

She is quite right, or they are quite right, whoever that nurse was who made those comments, because it is a very serious issue. What we have here in Victoria is a health crisis, and this is just another consequence of the financial mismanagement by Labor where budgets are being cut. This is happening right across the board in our hospitals. For these graduate nurses to have their program hours cut is another sign of the fiscal mismanagement and the reckless decisions being made by Labor and the impacts it is having on the delivery of health care in this state. The action I seek from the minister is for her to urgently step in and sort this issue out. Get those graduate nurses back to what they should be doing, having more experience on the floor, and have those hours reinstated, as they were signed on to do. Do not delay; get on with it and do it immediately.