'All patients who need specials, will get specials’, said a St Vincent’s Sydney spokesperson.
A St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney spokesman has denied the facility will be reducing one-on-one nursing care for its most vulnerable patients, saying all that’s changing is who will be providing that care.
Management of the Darlinghurst public hospital allegedly announced to staff in an email on Friday that close observation nurses would no longer be used on morning shifts from Monday to Friday.
Close observation nurses – also known as “specials”, commonly an enrolled nurse or assistant in nursing – provide one-on-one care to the most vulnerable patients, including those with dementia, behavioural issues and those at high risk of falls.
Concerned nurses, who spoke anonymously to the Sydney Morning Herald, said the move would “cause more instances of injuries such as falls” and further staff burnout.
A spokesperson for St Vincent’s Sydney Hospital told Health Services Daily this afternoon that the issue with specials was not about the well-publicised financial pressures on the hospital, but about the mix of staffing assigned to the task.
“All patients who need specials, will get specials,” said the spokesman. “It’s just a case of recalibrating and resourcing that internally rather than through agency nurses.”
Agency nurses have been providing the close observation care, at greater expense to the hospital than if hospital staff were doing it, he said.
“Those patients are a core part of what we do.”
Whether the transferring of close observation nursing duties to full-time staff will increase the burden on frontline staff or will mean closing beds, rather than under-resourcing them, remains to be seen.
News of possible financial woes at St Vinnie’s was broken in a special report in The Saturday Paper on 23 December which alleged the publicly-funded hospital in inner Sydney would “run out of money from April 2024”.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association wrote to hospital management last Wednesday, according to the SMH, asking whether nursing staff would be affected by the provider’s forecast $70 million deficit by July, including a $7.5 million shortfall for staff pay, goods and services.
St Vincent’s acting COO Andrea Ness confirmed the hospital was experiencing budgetary pressures “as it shifts out of a covid-response phase and returns to more predictable operating tempo”.
“This is a common and frequently told story in today’s public healthcare setting, which is experiencing significant change and adjustment in the wake of the pandemic,” she wrote in response to The Saturday Paper’s reporting.
Union members held a meeting last Friday afternoon and sent a letter to St Vincent’s management seeking reassurance that no nursing roles would be affected by the alleged financial woes.
In a statement, St Vincent’s told the SMH that any changes to staffing arrangements would “not involve any reduction of clinical frontline nurses”.
Nurses were also told last week they would no longer receive an allowance given to the nurse in charge on mornings the unit manager was working, according to the SMH.
Also of concern is an alleged lack of consultation with nurses and other staff prior to the decision being made and an assurance from Ms Ness that management would “certainly consult on any proposed changes to be made”.
The union’s letter called the lack of consultation “deeply disrespectful”.
NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association assistant general secretary Michael Whaites told the SMH the union was “deeply concerned when it comes to positions being cut and when members’ entitlements are not being honoured”.
It’s more bad news for St Vincent’s which was on the receiving end of a cyber attack on 19 December.