ESTIMATES COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS – 17 JUNE 2010
they is the right number of nurses on a shift averaged over a period of a month.
Mr CONLAN: Okay. Can you table that information you provided?
Mr WILSON: We can table information on the number of occasions where nurses have worked more
than 60 hours of rostered work in a week, since October 2008.
Mr CONLAN: What about instances where nurses have worked more than 152 hours a month? Do
you have that information?
Mr WILSON: We do not have that.
Mr CONLAN: So, you are not sure whether or not nurses are working more than the recommended
number of hours under the …
Mr WILSON: In effect, your question would be how many nurses do overtime on any occasion.
Mr CONLAN: And how much overtime?
Mr WILSON: And how much overtime they do.
Mr CONLAN: Yes. Can we be specific on that? Can you table that? I will take that on notice.
Mr WILSON: We do not have that information, we would have to take that notice.
Mr VATSKALIS: We do not have …
____________________________
Question on Notice No 7.10
Mr CHAIRMAN: So can you just then repeat it.
Mr CONLAN: Would you please provide the committee with the amount of overtime undertaken by
nurses in Territory hospitals broken down by hospital and how much overtime?
Mr CHAIRMAN: For the purposes of Hansard, I allocate that question No 7.10.
___________________________
Mr CONLAN: That might answer this question, but how many 12-hour shift rosters have been
approved since the implementation of the nursing hours per patient day model?
Mr WILSON: We would have to take that question on notice.
Question on Notice No 7.11
Mr CHAIRMAN: If you could just repeat the question for Hansard, member for Greatorex.
Mr CONLAN: How many 12-hour shift rosters have been approved since the implementation of the
nursing hours per patient day model?
Mr CHAIRMAN: For the purposes of Hansard, I allocate that question No 7.11.
____________________________
ESTIMATES COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS – 17 JUNE 2010
Mr CONLAN: Minister, do you know if there are any 12-hour shifts currently in operation?
Mr WILSON: I can answer that. There are some 12-hour shifts being worked. In specialist units, it is
quite standard.
Mr CONLAN: And these have been approved by the Chief Executive and the Commissioner for
Public Employment in consultation with the ANF?
Mr WILSON: They would have been.
Mr CONLAN: They have been?
Mr WILSON: As far as I am aware, they have been.
Mr CONLAN: For what reason have the 12-hour shifts been implemented? I mean, you are aware of
some at the moment, so?
Mr WILSON: The general reason that 12-hour shifts are introduced are particularly in the areas like
intensive care units around Australia, and certainly in the Northern Territory as well, and you have, of
course, with the 24-hour cover to provide, you either have shifts of indeterminate length, or you have
eight-hour shifts, or you have something like 12-hour shifts, so two nurses per shift work. And in areas
like ICU, that is the preferred method for ICU nurses. Also, many hospitals need eight nurses. Some
hospitals emergency department nurses prefer to work a least number of shifts per week, and there is
reasonable evidence that, in areas like ICU, the patient care is not compromised.
Mr CONLAN: And just how many, just again, just how many there are, that you will provide that
information. That was a question on notice, anyway.
Mr WILSON: The question is, how many departments …
___________________________
Question on Notice No 7.12
Mr CONLAN: Yes. So we established that there are some, and we have established the reasons
why. I would just like to know how many are actually being posted. I thought I did ask that question on
notice, did I not?
Okay, so how many 12-hour shifts are currently operational?
Mr WILSON: Can I suggest the member puts, how many departments in the Northern Territory
hospitals operate 12-hour shift rosters?
Mr CHAIRMAN: That is question No 7.12, as read by Dr Wilson.
__________________________
Mr CONLAN: Minister, you have said, you boasted in quite a few releases about the 95 nurses that
you have employed in the last 12 months, I think it was, was it, from …
Mr VATSKALIS: Ninety-five nurses to meet the nursing hours per person day.
Mr CONLAN: Yes. Now, are they new nurses? Or are they have been moved from other areas with
specific skills, or are they brand new nurses, from the ground, straight out of college, in the hospital?
ESTIMATES COMMITTEE PROCEEDINGS – 17 JUNE 2010
Mr WILSON: Those are newly-funded positions. They are an increase in the number of nurses that
are employed across the Territory, so they would be nurses experienced in other places moving here,
they would be your graduates.
Mr CONLAN: So it is not 95 new nurses, it is actually 95 positions?
Mr VATSKALIS: Ninety-five new positions.
Mr CONLAN: Which is contrary to the boast by yourself, minister, which is actually 95 new nurses.
Mr VATSKALIS: We have new positions, already established, so we have to get those 95 nurses on
the payroll.
Mr CONLAN: All right. But they are not new nurses. It is not like we have got 95 extra nurses straight
out of college in our wards?
Mr MASON: The point that Mr Wilson was making is that there are 95 new staff positions, but not all
of those have been staffed by new graduates, because you have a recruitment process where these
positions became available, and it might have been somebody who is working in a different ward, or
working on a casual basis, or it might have been a new grad, who filled those roles, so it would not be
true to say that they are all completely new nurses to the Territory, they might have doing agency
work and moved into one of these roles, it could be a new grad who has recently been in a position to
take up one of the roles. I think that is the point that we are trying to make here.
Mr CONLAN: No, I understand that, I do.
Mr VATSKALIS: The positions are vacant …
Mr CONLAN: Well, that is right. The boast by yourself is that we have got 95 new nurses on the …
Mr VATSKALIS: Certainly. You cannot find new nurses that have moved into …
Mr CONLAN: Ninety-five new positions.
Mr VATSKALIS: No, hold on.
Mr CHAIRMAN: The call is with the minister.
Mr CONLAN: It is all right, I suspected as much, but that is okay. Thank you for the clarification.
Now, aero-med is the non-admitted patient care? Can I just go back to a previous question before we
move on to some other stuff?
Can you stand here, minister, with your hand on your heart and tell us that there will be absolutely no
over-run in Alice Springs or Royal Darwin Hospitals at the end of this financial year?
Mr VATSKALIS: David made it very clear how the system operates.
Mr CONLAN: You have just said that, you have told us that it is tracking at $104m at this point -
$216m for RDH - that would indicate that there is not. So do you believe what you are being told or
not?
Mr VATSKALIS: David, you can answer that. Make it simple.
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