Nurses are hitting the books as they take on greater levels of responsibility in the workplace. And while the extra study and knowledge takes pressure off the public health system, it does prompt questions around whether the additional responsibilities being taken on by nurses is giving them ammunition in the ongoing wage dispute. By Nina Hendy.

On any given day around Australia, hundreds of nurses are committing to further study in a bid to further their careers.

Whether nurses are skilling up through an educational institution or on the job training, the additional study is giving them the smarts to step up and perform tasks usually set aside for doctors.

Melbourne’s Mayfield Education, for example, trains around 60 post-graduate nurses a year, while a further 200-plus enrol in various nursing courses to brush up on their skills.

Once studies are complete, nurses are taking on duties that in years gone by have been performed by doctors.

Among these additional responsibilities being taken on by nurses is administering intravenous medicines and the collection of pap smears. Across the country, increasing numbers of Division 1 nurses are undertaking training to allow them to conduct pap smears.

In fact, in Victoria alone, there are now 450 qualified nurses who have undertaken one of the three Victorian courses on offer in this area.

Once nurses have completed a course, they need to be credentialed by PapScreen Victoria before being able to take Pap tests in Victoria.

A new report released in April by the Victorian Cervical Cytology Registry found that of the 573,822 Pap tests conducted in Victoria in 2010, a total of 28,546 were conducted by nurses, which represents 5 per cent of all tests collected last year. The majority of these (58 per cent) were collected within a general practice setting.

The report shows that over the last 15 years, the number and proportion of Pap tests collected by nurses has increased more than five times, up from just 0.8 per cent in 1996.

But it doesn’t appear that the additional responsibility is helping nurses to successfully negotiate wage rises, which is what leaves a sour taste in the collective mouths of nurses.

While all levels of government are continually telling the media that nurses are the ‘backbone’ of the health system, calls for pay rises have largely fallen on deaf ears for many years, particularly in areas such as aged care.

However NSW nurses voted to accept the state government’s wages, conditions and ratios package earlier this year, which will give them a 9.7 per cent wage rise over the next four years. However, inflation over that period is expected to be 10.5 per cent, according to media reports.

The pay dispute has reached boiling point in Tasmania, where public hospital nurses have been threatening industrial action over cost-cutting, which their union says has stripped staff of up to a week’s leave.

Aged care nurses know they are among the worst paid within the nursing profession, prompting a demonstration in Melbourne in March in a bid to demand better wages and more care for older Australians. It came after an independent report showed that a registered nurse delivered an average of just 22 minutes of care per day to each nursing care resident.

And yet funds continue to be made available for nurses to increase their skills. A new round of scholarships for higher studies in aged care, including professional development worth up to $30,000, was recently announced by the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing, Mark Butler.

Around 130 scholarships have been made available for postgraduate or continuing education relating to care of older people via the Federal Government’s Supporting a Professional Aged Care Workforce Program.

While the scholarships have now closed, they enabled registered nurses to apply for scholarships of up to $15,000 a year for two years for postgraduate studies. Enrolled and registered nurses may receive continuing education scholarships of up to $3,000 to attend conferences, $5,000 for short courses or workshops and up to $6,000 over two years for re-entry courses.

“These reforms will build on our current strengths and reshape the system to better meet the needs of patients and health care in the 21st century,” Mr Butler said.

By Nina Hendy
(03) 5333 4939
0418 329 554
Nina@NinasWord.com.au
703 words
1/05/11
Editorial: Education
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