nursing

Illustration photo is used by a real agency.

Illustrations and commentary from candobetter.net. Although this article comes from a petition, (which already has 27,222 supporters) the article explaining it, by Esther Inglis of Brisbane, Australia is fantastic. I would only add to it that it is not just graduates who are suffering. This rort and scandal needs to be blown out of the water in Australia. The absolute shamelessness of careerists currently running hospitals all over the country, who dump on their colleagues and on students merits that you cut dead most people in hospital management on suspicion that they are part of this outrageous behaviour towards ordinary RNs and trainee nurses. Hospitals and managers are getting bonuses for bringing in foreign nurses and getting them to sign up with universities to do Masters and Phd's in nursing at great expense to the immigrants and enormous cost to wider Australian society. And while this is going on many excellent nurses with years of experience are now unable to find work. They cannot afford to compete with cashed up professional immigrants for post graduate university courses that have become quasi-mandatory to get some short term job in nursing. And, as imported nurses sit at their desks and do full time higher degree courses just in order to keep their positions and fulfill their contracts, the wards are filled with new rapidly trained kinds of 'care-workers', and a few overworked Division 2s, doing jobs that real RNs once did. Can this be good for anyone? Tony Abbott complains about the cost of health care, but he has nothing to say about this - naturally. I really don't think it is necessary to add that I have nothing against foreign nurses, however I will. What I am against is destroying the reasonable expectations of employment of nurses born here. It is so cruel, unnecessary and shameful. The unions are doing nothing, nor are the schools of nursing; they are just shamefully taking the money for membership and courses, like the cowards they are. So try signing this petition and send it around everywhere.

Article by Esther Inglis, first appeared on Change.org.

You can sign the petition here:

https://www.change.org/petitions/federal-government-review-457-visa-for-nurses-in-australia?recruiter=100529205&utm_campaign=mailto_link&utm_medium=email&utm_source=share_petition

Getting a job is competitive, getting a job as a graduate even more so. Faced with proposed changes to the federal budget, it is a bleak outlook for the thousands of nursing graduates each year, who are desperate to be employed but are often losing out on job opportunities to experienced nurses recruited by hospitals/facilities on 457 visas.

There was a shortage in nurses, but now even skilled nurses are finding it difficult to find work. Though this issue has many dimensions, graduate nurses are most at risk of losing out to foreign experienced nurses. Graduate nurses are our future, initiatives need to be in place to ensure they are placed in employment upon completion of their degrees, otherwise the future of Australian nursing will again be faced with shortages of nurses.

Click on the picture to see how Australia's 'nursing shortage' is being misrepresented to potential migrant nurses.

The federal budget will make unemployed life very difficult, especially considering that many nurse graduates are under 30 years of age and will not qualify for unemployment benefits for 6 months.

The proportion of international nurses on 457 visas hired each year is comparable to the proportion of nurse graduates who find themselves unable to find work. How are we meant to transition from graduate into experienced nurses, if the opportunities to work, experience and refine our skills is not available to us.

The federal and state governments need to work out where our health and employment system is falling short and failing graduate nurses, who previously had excellent job prospects upon graduation. Initiatives to hire graduates need to be implemented immediately, so we can get out foot in the door and have options for our futures.

We have studied and trained extremely hard to be there in your hours of greatest need… we know that you will help us now in ours. Please support our petition to have this issue reviewed and action taken by the government.

Nationally, a breakdown of unemployed graduates reveal the state of the industry:

SA: The ANMF estimates that in South Australia alone, 280 nurse and midwife graduates were unable to secure jobs after university last year.

QLD: Only 600 of 2500 nursing graduates were able to secure jobs this year.

TAS: 60 per cent of nursing graduates were unable to find work last year.

VIC: 800 nurse and midwife graduates were unable to secure employment last year.

NSW: The ANMF says the NSW public hospital sector is the largest employer of nurses on 457 visas.

(source Australian Federation of Nursing and Midwifery)

To:
Scott Morrison, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
Senator Eric Abetz, Federal Minister for Employment
Peter Dutton, Federal Minister for Health
Luke Hartsuyker, Assistant Minister for Employment
Kate Ellis, Shadow Minister for Education
Catherine King, Shadow Minister for Health
Lawrence Springborg, State Minister for Health - Queensland
John-Paul Langbroek, State Minister for Education, Training & Employment - Queensland
Curtis Pitt, Shadow State Minister for Employment - Queensland
Jo-Ann Miller, Shadow State Minister for Health - Queensland
Richard Marles, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection
Review 457 visas for international nurses. In my home state of Queensland, only one quarter of graduate nurses last year have gained positions, this is a scary prospect for nursing students.

With the changes to the federal budget, we cannot afford to be out of work, especially as graduates with no experience. The age of entitlement is over, though many of us cannot even get a foot in the door to put food on our tables.

Whilst we value and respect the work of international nurses working in Australia on 457 visas, we need to make sure that we are not being passed over and have every opportunity to enter the workforce and build our skill base with valuable hospital experience.

The rate of graduate nurses unemployed is similar to the intake of international nurses, so we know the work is there, we just need our government to tighten the regulations on these visas and give us a fighting chance to start off our careers!
Sincerely,
[Your name]

Who in earth designed this VHIMS system and why haven't they been sent to prison? How many people have suffered by this? The Victorian Health Department relies on this evil joke of a system: http://www.health.vic.gov.au/clinrisk/vhims/ The policy of promotions by 'merit' somehow finishes up keeping anyone intelligent or principled out of executive jobs in this field. I have actually used the VHIMS system and the absolute failure of management to care that it made things worse contributed to my growing sense of danger and injustice. The attitude to safety and the law in public hospitals is absurd - no better than in Florence Nightingale's time. Hospital managers are reckless; they are laws unto themselves. Inside excerpt from Auditor General's shocking report on Victoria's hospitals.

Auditor General exposes dangerous, dysfunctional hospital reporting system which seems designed to cover up, not collate

In the Auditor General's report:

3.4 Incident reporting system [1]
"The incident reporting system used by public hospitals in Victoria is called the Victorian Health Incident Management System (VHIMS) and is licensed to the Department of Health (the department). Incident reporting is a key element of a safety management system. Over 2 500 OHS incidents were reported annually by around 16 000 employees of the four publ ic hospitals visited.

During the site visits, VHIMS was found to be not fit-for-purpose as an OHS incident reporting system. It does not enable, as the Department of Human Services-Public Hospital Sector Occupational Health and Safety Management Framework Model (OHS Management Framework) states, 'a formal process by which accidents, incidents, near misses or potentially unsafe si tuations are reported to people with the responsibility to investigate and institute any required corrective ac tions'. Issues with the VHIMS system include:

- Some mandatory fields-such as whether the OHS incident was disclosed to visitors of patients-are of no relevance to OHS incidents as they are designed for clinical incidents. Repeatedly filling in irrelevant fields makes reporting unnecessarily time consuming, which can deter staff from reporting minor incidents and near misses.

- There are no fields to capture vital OHS information, such as:

- signs and triggers leadi ng to frequent occupational violence incidents-for example, assaults-which carry t he most severe consequences for public hospital staff x OHS training of the staff mem ber who reported the OHS incident.

- Staff interviews and site visits showed that categories to cla ssify OHS incidents are complicated, unclear, too numerous-124 to choose from-and sometimes irrelevant or overlapping.

For example, occupat ional violence can be classified as 'inappropriate contact' or 'physical aggres sion'. This limits the usefulness of aggregated management reports, and hinders accurate and consistent input by the reporting staff member.

- - The incident severity rating is also of questionable value as it:

- is based on clinical risk and is inappropriate for OHS incidents. For example, a patient needing medical attention as a consequence of a patient safety incident is rightly seen as significant and is assigned a high severity rating. On the other hand, staff needing medical attention after an OHS incident may not necessarily be given such a high rating.

- Does not capture probable consequences if the incident occurred again, or the likelihood of a repeat occurrence. A near miss arising from faulty equipment could have much graver c onsequences next time.

-

Interviewed staff report - and site visits confirm - that training in the incident reporting system is inadequate, with brief overviews given during staff induction and no follow-up training offered at any of the public hospitals visited. The system complexity requires a more in-depth approach, particularly for work ers who may not be computer proficient.

Of the 42 staff interviewed, 36 reported that the incident reporting system was not user friendly. All 16 OHS directors surveyed stated that they believe there is under-reporting of both OHS incidents and near misses.

Code blacks are called in public hospital s when staff are physically threatened, and each is recorded in a security log. Comparison at one public hospital between this log and occupational violence incidents in VHIMS found that 70 per cent of incidents where staff were physically threatened and a code black was called were not reported in VHIMS.

This is a systemic and longstanding issue, as both the 2005 Victorian taskforce on violence in nursing report and the 2011 Parliamentary Inquiry into Violence and Security Arrangements in Victorian Hospitals and, in particular, Emergency Departments found that the incident reporting system was difficult for staff to use, and that under-reporting of OHS incidents was a significant issue.

Reporting was also not timely, which means that staff may be exposed to an OHS risk several times before control measures can be put into place or management is aware of the hazard. At one site, 87 per cent of OHS incidents were not entered into VHIMS within seven days of the incident occurring. No reason was given for this, although staff report that entering an OH S incident into VHIMS often has to wait until a shift is finished or a computer is available.

The VHIMS used by hospitals has been designed to capture clinical patient safety incidents and has not been appropriately modified to readily capture OHS incidents.
This undermines the stated departmental VHIM S project objective to 'develop a statewide, standard methodology, for the wa y incident information is reported within publicly-funded health services'. Figure 3A illustrates shortcomings in VHIMS for one particular OHS risk - occupational violence."[1]

Hospital management culture a danger to public

After more than a decade working in one major hospital in Victoria, I came to the conclusion that management were on a power-trip and had completely lost touch with what hospitals are there for - to help seriously unwell people get better.

It seems that being able to rapidly fire orders downwards to an army of professionals and skilled workers who rely utterly on references from management and cannot answer back simply goes to the heads of those in charge.

The experience of many nurses is of a sadistic, self-indulgent management that employs specialist human-resources professionals to help them silence the complaints of their victims. Tools like the VHIMS are made to order for these bullies. Victoria's industrial laws are close to useless and health sector unions seem to be in league with hospital management. Thanks are due to the Auditor General for validating the perception of those who toil below decks in these whitewashed over-insured laughably credentialed concentration camps. There should be mass-sacking of Victorian Hospital Management, notably the CEOs of the four hospitals examined and their salaries should be redistributed to the lowest paid workers in those places.

NOTES

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Public hospitals present hazardous challenges that demand OHS management of the highest standard. The audit found that while there are instances of better practice among the audited public hospitals, there are also significant shortcomings which put staff at unnecessary risk. In addition, weaknesses identified with the role of the department as the health system manager, and with WorkSafe as the OHS regulator, have contributed to the failure to achieve better management of OHS risk by public hospitals. Neither the department nor WorkSafe has a comprehensive understanding of sector-wide OHS risks or emerging trends in public hospitals.

Statements from the Auditor General's Report, November 2013

There is insufficient priority given to, and accountability for, OHS (Occupational Health and Safety) in public hospitals.

Staff safety needs to be given a higher priority by senior management and the department, and managers within public hospitals should be held to account for the OHS performance of areas under their control. Sustained improvement in the public hospital safety culture is not likely to occur without greater priority and clear accountability.

Neither the department nor WorkSafe has a comprehensive understanding of sector-wide OHS risks or emerging trends in public hospitals. WorkSafe cannot demonstrate that its project activity reduces OHS risk in public hospitals. Collaboration between the department and WorkSafe has been poor, with missed opportunities to reduce sector-wide OHS risk. Wide variability between public hospital OHS management practices—such as quality assurance of safety management systems and safety inspections—highlight the need fo r stronger sector-wide leadership.

These issues collectively warrant a future review of public hospital OHS risk to assess whether the level of protection for public hospital workers has improved.

Top down dereliction

The Victorian health services governance handbook states that the department plays a key system-level role in the performance of health services. This involves ‘shaping and enabling health services to function effectively’. The Health Services Act 1988 states that part of the department’s role is to enc ourage safety and improvement in the quality of health services provided by healthcare facilities.

However, the exact role of the department—as the health systems manager—in worker health and safety is not clear. Key documents governing the relationship between the department, the Minister for Health and public hospitals make no mention of OHS management in public hospitals, or outline the department’s expectations.

[...]

Although policy at each of the four audited public hospitals states that the board of the public hospital, as employer, is ultimately accountable for OHS, there is a breakdown in the chain of account ability below the board:

- Unit managers who are responsible for the day-to-day management of work units are not held accountable for OHS performance—this is also the case for the executive directors of public hospital departments. While there is a policy commitment that managers are responsible for maintaining a safe working environment, there are no mechanisms or targets to hold these managers to account for OHS performance.

- Ownership of OHS risk does not reside with the manager where the risk occurs.

At an organisational level, risk registers identify the corporate services area as the owner of OHS risks, despite OHS risks presenting predominantly in clinical departments.

"Under the devolved governance model, described in Part one of this report, the board and Chief Executive Officer of a public hospital play key roles in providing a safe and healthy workplace."

Occupational health and safety priority and accountability
Victorian Auditor-General’s Report
Occupational Health and Safety Risk in Public Hospitals

Managers are not accountable for occupational health and safety performance

Although OHS policies at each public hospital did state that the board, as employer, is ultimately accountable for occupational health and safety, there is a breakdown in the chain of accountability below the board:

- managers of clinical areas, where OHS risks predominantly present, are not held to account for the OHS performance of that unit or department

- ownership of OHS risk does not reside with the manager where the risk occurs.

However, there was no evidence that they were ever held to account at the four audited public hospitals. The OHS Management Framework states that ‘performance of OHS responsibilities is part of established job performance assessment process’.

None of the four audited public hospitals could demonstrate that mechanisms were in place to hold unit managers to
account for OHS performance. For example, even though the position descriptions of nurse unit managers NUMs)—who have direct responsibility for frontline staff and daily tasks—allocate them responsibility for overseeing OHS at the work unit level, half of the NUMs interviewed were not sure of their OHS responsibilities. Even those who understood their OHS responsibilities were not required to demonstrate how they fulfilled those responsibilities.

Managers to whom NUMs report are also not held to account for OHS performance. Position descriptions of executive directors, who are responsible for the day-to-day management of the clinical departments, assign responsibility for OHS in these areas. However, there was no evidence that they were ever held to account at the four audited public hospitals. The OHS Management Framework states that ‘performance of OHS responsibilities is part of established job performance assessment process’.

The audit team did find some examples of better practice at public hospitals that were not part of this audit. For instance, one public hospital requires NUMs to report on OHS incidents and control measures in their unit. NUMs at this public hospital are also required to develop an action plan where gaps have been identified, and these action
plans form part of their annual performance review.

Lack of occupational health and safety reporting against set targets

Managers need to receive regular reports against the targets set on OHS performance in the workplaces under their control if they are to be held to account. Neither reporting nor target setting was found at the work unit or department level of the public hospitals audited. Unit managers and clinical executive directors do not receive regular reports or trend data of OHS incidents in the work units for which they are responsible. As there are several unit managers rostered on during any month, without aggregated reporting it is difficult for each manager to know whether OHS performance is deteriorating or improving, or how their unit compares with other workplaces in the
organisation. The OHS Management Framework emphasises that ‘Health and safety performance is regularly reported’.

In recent decades, objection to the high immigration has been smeared by the "politically correct" and phony left political groups as "racist" and loudly denounced. This has helped make it possible for governments to impose record high rates of immigration. As a result, native Australian workers have suffered higher living costs, particularly for housing, and reduced wages as a result of more competition for work. One group that has suffered more than most is nurses and nursing assistants. Already, thanks to 'reforms' by 'Labor' governments beginning in 1983, they were forced to train at their own expense at university or TAFE, where they had previously been provided with on-the-job training and career structure. Their circumstances have since been made even worse by having been discriminated against in favour of ever larger numbers of immigrant workers. The included article by one currently unemployed nurse's assistant (AIN) was first posted here as a comment.

Hello, I'm writing in regards to what recently happened. I am a skilled assistant in nursing certificate 3 and 4 in facility and home care trained.

I have many years experience within this field, however many would say that this job is I quote "undesirable" but I know of many Australians loving this rewarding job as nursing care staff. I applied like so many fellow AIN's for jobs within the age care sector as I am fully qualified and ready to start ASAP, speak fluent English and have my own car and no other responsibilities, but time and time again I do not get the job I have applied for 58 this month alone and still nothing.

They say there is a job shortage and there is a high demand for nursing staff but obviously not as I am along with many others are still unemployed. I recently applied for a job locally as my friends work within that facility however yet again, to my dismay, no result, I asked my friends who got hired and they said about 12 African people just got hired to my amazement my friends told me that they know little English and can not communicate well with other staff or patients and they had just finished their fast tracked certificate in aged care.

I am not racist or ignorant. I do believe in equality, but I am shocked as I am more qualified have prior experience and can communicate well in English. This is a must in nursing as miss-communications or negligence regarding medications can cause death this is completely dangerous to have non English speaking personal as staff because if they can not speak the language how can they read it? Potentially this is negligent for health and safety.

I wanted to endeavor more into this as I believe that this is taking away the jobs from locals and people who were born here in Australia as well as the potentially harmful to patients and that is clearly wrong. I asked a few questions around to see what was really going on as there must have been more to this and there was.

The government issues a bounty on all of the migrants to work in these "undesirable" jobs as an incentive to gain employment, in short the government pays for them to be there.

I believe now with these schemes going on more and more Australians are going to find it constantly harder to gain future employment within Australia. I feel this is wrong and unjust. However this is not their fault it is the our Governments not thinking about long term? I am outraged by this that I am going further with my issue regarding employment because something has to change. I do not want to be on welfare, but I am forced to I rely on the government.

Editorial comment: Thank you, Toria, for sharing with us and our readers your experiences as a trainee nurse. It is most informative and insightful. I recall how, in New South Wales around 1983, the then state 'Labor' Government of Premier Neville Wran and the Federal 'Labor' government of Bob Hawke started to dismantle of the system which enabled nurses to train whilst being paid a living wage and living in subsidised accommodation. Nursing was supposedly 'professionalised' by requiring nurses to attend university and live on the inadequate Austudy student allowance in place of the modest trainee nurse wage. There was no subsidized accommodation.

Then in 1986 (the very year I started University as a mature student) the Federal Hawke 'Labor' government further burdened nurses when it began to dismantle Australia's free tertiary education system. It introduced the so-called "Higher Education Contribution Scheme" (HECS). In order to attend university, students were asked to sign a form which gave the Federal Government the right deduct a 'contribution' to their tertiary eduction from any wages for current or future paid employment. Some refused to sign the forms. The government's response was to make each student legally liable for that debt until it was paid off at some future date.

At least those native Australians, who put themselves through all that hard work and who had incurred debt, to attain a nursing qualification were, up until then, assured of employment and a career path, but that has now changed also. Most native Australia workers are being trampled upon by the ruling elites, but nurses are treated worse than most. They have allowed nurses from foreign countries to be employed in place of native Australian nurses. Many are unable to find work and those who do, are systematically discriminated against.

Subject was: Charity starts at home first and foremost. This was posted at 14:28 +1000 on 26 June 2013. Unfortunately, it was hard to see amongst the spam comments. My apologies. - Ed, 01:51, 27 June.

The Australian Nursing Federation (Victorian Branch) called on Health Minister David Davis to urgently direct public hospitals to increase their intake of recently graduated nurses from Australian universities after it was revealed 805 nursing and midwifery graduates have missed out on a graduate year place next year. Up to 40% of local graduate nurses and midwives are excluded from employment in our hospitals.Shamefully, hospitals are importing foreign nurses and denying locally born and trained nurses an entry year as graduates (often referred to as an intern year).

This terrible situation in Victoria, created by its former Labor Government and perpetuated by the current Liberal Government in Victoria but replicated Australia-wide, means that local nurses pay dearly for three year courses at universities and then find that hospitals have offered these traditional placements to foreign nurses. Yet hospitals and the government are constantly shrieking about a nursing shortage. Furthermore Australia is importing nurses from countries like India and China where they are in desperately short supply. Stealing nurses from poor countries is especially obscene and unfair in the light of Australia having so many of her own new graduates unemployed.

"Although there is a worldwide shortage of nurses manipulating nurse migration is a poor solution to that problem because it causes complex issues within health and social systems in recipient and source countries."[1]

It is also true unfortunately that reentry into the workforce by nurses with experience who have taken a break is unaccountably difficult and expensive, often requiring nurses with young families to spend tens of thousands of dollars repeating their entire nursing degree. An online discussion site called "Nurse Uncut" contains very revealing opinions on these matters.

New state-sanctioned form of slavery in Australia

Nursing degrees themselves are of very varied quality across the spectrum of universities, with students often paying fees to do their own on-line study, with little real assistance. The students are also expected to work for hundreds of hours unpaid in places like nursing homes, as part of their study and training - none of which means they will find paid employment in our system. This way of 'gaining practical experience' seems to amount to a form of state-sanctioned slavery. In contrast, student nurses received payment in the old hospital training systems, albeit low payment, and the hospitals often provided free or very low cost accommodation to any nurse that needed it.[2]

The severity of these counterproductive hiring and retraining practices in Victoria (and elsewhere in Australia) calls into question our educational institutions and our hospitals where it looks as if some kind of synergy is operating in kickbacks for employing foreign nurses on the condition they undertake further study in Australia. These kickbacks must be big enough to make it worthwhile to individual hospitals to risk scandal by knocking back hundreds of local applications, with over 448 rejected in the metropolitan area and, astoundingly, over 200 in country regions.

The ANF in Victoria is able to point to 1142 recent graduates of Victorian universities who could not find a hospital to start work in.

Below we reproduce a press release from the Australian Nursing Federation on the failure of Australian hospitals to employ Australian recent graduates.

ANF tells Dave Davis to tell hospitals to employ local grads

Victoria abandons 805 nursing and midwifery graduates despite authorities predicting shortages

The Australian Nursing Federation (Victorian Branch) is calling on the Health Minister David Davis to urgently direct public hospitals to increase their intake of the class of 2012 after it was revealed 805 nursing and midwifery graduates have missed out on a graduate year place next year.

ANF understands up to 40 per cent of all graduate nurses and midwives have missed out on a graduate year place across the Victorian hospital system despite authorities warning of a looming nurse shortage.

The document used as the basis of the Victorian Government's health services planning, the 10-year Health Priorities Framework 2012-22: Metropolitan Health Plan, claims that between 2011 and 2022 the Victorian system will lose 72,000 nurses, with about 6000 nurses leaving per year and about 4500 graduates starting each year.

The Commonwealth statutory authority established to advise the federal, state and territory health ministers, Health Workforce Australia, predicted that Australia would have a shortage of 110,000 nurses in its Health Workforce 2025 Report released last April. The report says Victoria will have a shortage of 19,615 registered nurses and 7,183 enrolled nurses by 2025.

Despite the predictions Victorian budget papers show no change in the number of public hospital funded graduate places, while in reality Computer Match data indicates each service has reduced the number of positions by about 10 per cent between 2011 and 2012. The evidence suggests the 2013 graduate year positions have been reduced further. Computer Match is the organisation responsible for matching graduates to graduate year positions.

Up to 40% of nurses and midwives excluded from our hospitals

Australian Nursing Federation (Victorian Branch) Acting Secretary Paul Gilbert said: "It defies logic to exclude up to 40 per cent of nurses and midwives successfully graduating from their courses when both the Baillieu Government and Health Workforce Australia are forecasting serious nurse shortages. Health Minister David Davis cannot afford to get this wrong now or we will lose hundreds of potential nurses and midwives.

"Graduates who have dedicated three or more years to their studies and successfully passed their courses should be looking forward to their first day on the ward and excited about starting their nursing careers especially when the authorities keep warning that we will need more nurses," he said.

"Instead hundreds of graduates are calling us devastated that they have no future as a nurse or a midwife before they've even started because they've missed out on a graduate year and are being told by hospitals that they won't get a job if they haven't completed a graduate year place," Mr Gilbert said.

"The Baillieu Government has a responsibility to the people of Victoria to invest in building our future nursing and midwifery workforce, but is instead undermining it by an almost across the board reduction in the number of graduate positions and allowing the introduction of catch-22 employment conditions that exclude nurses and midwives who have not undertaken a graduate year."

Victorian nursing and midwifery graduates who missed out by region

ANF has data indicating 746 Victorian nursing and midwifery graduates have missed out on a graduate year place next year. Another 59 Victorian graduates who studied interstate also missed out. The total number of unmatched candidates, who applied under the Victorian scheme, including some from New Zealand, is 1142. The following is a list of graduates who studied in Victoria and missed out on a graduate year place:

Western Victoria - 155 graduates

Northern and North East Victoria - 59 graduates

South East Victoria - 84 graduates

Metro - 448 graduates
ANF media release Source: http://www.anfvic.asn.au/news/43104.html 27 October 2012, 9:38am

Editorial Comment

This article, in case it needs explaining, falls under the candobetter.net rubrics of population (immigration, local citizens) and democracy. It also comes under land-use planning in the sense that how you direct population impacts on local empowerment and workforces, as well as on housing demand and prices and wages and conditions, as these are affected by high immigration in the context of very weak Australian worker protection. On 10 November some minor changes were made in response to comments about clarity. - Ed

NOTES

[1] BEVERLY J. MCELMURRY Mcelmurry, Beverly J. et al, 2006, "Ethical Concerns in Nurse Migration," http://www.uvm.edu/~bwilcke/mcelmurry.pdf

[2] As an added financial injury and insult, in today's hospitals nurses are actually made to pay back a portion of their salary in order to use the hospital parking, with parking fines for failing to keep up with hourly meters where the all day parking spots are filled. Can you imagine, on top of all the other stresses and responsibilities, having to leave the ward where you are working, to go down to the public parking area and feed a meter?

Is life as much fun as it should be or are our opportunities for enjoyment in daily life eroding? Brolga-Brolga explores the notion of a Gross National Fun Quotient and finds that Australia is deficient in this vital national resource.

Pointless Productivity and Gross National Fun Quotient

Is life as much fun as it should be? I’m tuned in a lot to the mainstream media, which gives me exposure to the prevailing messages to the masses and the local psyche. It was the nurses’ ongoing struggle to maintain their conditions and a phrase associated with this –“productivity improvements” that made me wonder if life was getting to be less and less fun. And I wonder how accurately productivity measures in a clinical situation like a hospital reflect the quality of the work done. What sacrifice is made by workers and patients in delivering “productivity improvements”? From the pressure that is being applied, it seems that there is absolutely no slack in the system to allow for nurses to be human, to have an “off day”, to “waste” a few minutes talking to patients or colleagues. Such intangible “time wasting” moments are fun; they make the job worth while. They make you want to turn up for work tomorrow and they increase staff and patient morale.

Are we in such a myopic, economically rationally straightened era that we can’t afford those moments any more?

Stressed Students

Universities seem to be populated with stressed students either grappling with tertiary studies in a foreign language or flying in and out of lectures between part time jobs which are an economic necessity dictated by HECS fees and little government support. Do students still have time to goof off and hang out fermenting ideas with other students on campus in the hours before the next lecture? I doubt it.

Perpetual Motion

My impression is that the whole country is in frantic perpetual motion! Mining workers fly in and fly out of their work places in isolated areas. Maybe it’s fun to begin with but it’s all about digging up stuff as fast as it can be shipped off and nothing to do with a reasonable life outside work for employees. A large sacrifice is made in that workers are absent from their families for the duration of their work stint. The lifestyle is mandated by circumstances and quality of life if is only incidental. In capital cities and larger centres both parents work now and so drop children of at crèche or school and then re-unite after work. No-one stays at home with the dog!

Poor Dogs

Dogs used to be good fun. I don’t own one at present but have had a total of 28 years of sharing my life with dogs. Where I live, everyone looks so serious as they stride purposefully to the designated off-leash area with their plastic bags tied to the leashes like flags, a signal of their dutiful consideration for others in a crowded suburb. They veer away from people walking in the opposite direction (if that person is not attached to a dog) as if to say “no one is going to accuse me of having an erring dog.” Looking after a friend’s dog recently I walked him in my street fully equipped with the requisite plastic bags. The dog sniffed around in the grass and even squatted in that unmistakable way but then changed his mind. I walked on with him and was immediately pounced on by a neighbour accusing me of anti-social behavior! I also notice that people walking their dogs don’t actually seem to have the time to do it. They plug something into their ears as they walk or else, they jog, cycle or skateboard as though they have to get the job done really quickly or do something else at the same time. This type of dog walking is no fun for dogs who, when liberated from the confines of a back yard, are subsumed into a world of tantalizing aromas and do not want to walk necessarily in a straight line at a constant pace. Rather they like to pull up or change direction without warning when arrested by a waft from a lamp post or distracted by a rustle in a bush. To be pulled along at cycling pace where any dog-initiated deviation will result in serious neck injury is not canine recreation! Some people actually don’t have any time to walk their dogs at all and pay a professional to do this. The professional I see at the local park looks as though he is having fun, at least. Yesterday he was in charge of about 5 dogs and took photos of each individually, wearing a small red and white trimmed seasonal hat. I must take my own hat off to these owners. They do love their dogs. The photos will go on the family Christmas card I guess. Perhaps paying the dog walker is akin to crèche fees.

Lack of Leisure

It seems that a lack of leisure time is a big part of the problem. Whereas now we hear through the media that our huge problem is our aging population and the challenge of looking after them, just a few decades ago, the problem we all faced was what we would with our increased leisure in the future! How would we amuse ourselves with extra time on our hands ?

The problem never arose! Those who were going to be at a loose end dreaming up new activities to fill their unstructured time now work more hours than ever!

Robbed of time, robbed of space

Lack of space will also sap our capacity for uncomplicated leisure. Back yards are places to have fun but we have to give them up it seems. Every daily newspaper has an article about how we must give up our attachment to our outside play areas - our back yards. We must, we are told, be filed away in apartments on top of one another, unable to play outside on the spur of the moment. Even those lucky enough to retain a back yard seem to be making heavy weather of it ! It is no longer an unstructured relatively natural area but now must earn its keep and maintain its value (without being over capitalised) with swimming pools, concreted and paved areas, barbecue areas and decking crammed into the space. Will the kids still enjoy it?

Our 'leaders' bully and threaten us

The rhetoric from governments and business spokesmen is full of the threat that if we don’t shape up, buy more, move up, sell more, make more, produce more, be competitive, have more babies, import more immigrants - then we will sink into the quicksand of not keeping up.

My observations may be very subjective as is the notion of fun but I feel an increasing seriousness enveloping the world I know. Everywhere I look I see less fun, more angst. I think one would need to be oblivious or a committed optimist to believe that the gross national fun quotient was on the increase. Or perhaps I just haven’t grown up?

Australia had the world's first Labor government ever and ratified the United Nations' International Labour Organisation's "Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention" in 1973, but in 2011 nurses are threatened with jail when they take industrial action. Footage of 24 Nov 2011 nurses' march on Parliament on Channel 9 plus coverage of associated and earlier related news on Channel 9 (unfortunately interrupted by ads for Pringles chips- which are unhealthy - and Westpac - whose land-speculation and growth lobby activities push up price cost of living and therefore wages).

As news.com.au reported on 19 November, nurses who defy the orders of "Fair Work Australia" to end industrial action in support of their claims for some compensation for huge recent increases in costs of living and civilised working conditions, risk 12 months' jail -- this, in a country, which had the world's first Labor government ever and ratified the United Nations' International Labour Organisation's "Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention" in 1973.

In fact, only 3 years after Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam signed the Convention, his successor, Malcolm Fraser, enacted the vicious sections 45D and 45E of the Trades Practices Act, which outlawed "secondary boycotts". Since then Liberal Governments, in collusion with subsequent "Labor" Governments, have taken away ever more of our collective bargaining rights.

http://candobetter.net

A website for reform in democracy, environment, population, land use planning and energy policy

"As a nurse, I was in contact with the ill and the infirm. I knew something about the health and disease of bodies, but for a long time, I was baffled at the tremendous personal problems of life, of marriage, of living, and of just being. Here indeed was a challenge to “build beyond thyself.” Where was I to begin? I found the answer at every door. [...]

For these beliefs I was denounced, arrested, I was in and out of police courts and higher courts, and indictments hung over my life for several years. But nothing could alter my beliefs. Because I saw these as truths, I stubbornly stuck to my convictions."
See also: "Progress ideology, colonial racism, right to life and family planning"
Image source was http://www.nwhm.org/ProgressiveEra/birthcontrol.html

Only in 1965 did the practice of contraception become legal between married couples in the United States, through a 1965 Supreme Court decision, Griswold v. Connecticut. Only a few months later, on September 6, 1966, Margaret Sanger, a nurse, and the founder of the US birth control movement, died at the age of 86.

(See bottom of article for details of summer internships at the Margaret Sanger institute.)

Margaret Sanger's 1953 speech about standing up to the authorities to defend her convictions

This I believe, first of all: that all our basic convictions must be tested and transmuted in the crucible of experience–and sometimes, the more bitter the experience, the more valid the purified belief.

As a child, one of a large family, I learned that the thing I did best was the thing I liked to do. This realization of doing and getting results was what I have later called an awakening consciousness.

There is an old Indian proverb which has inspired me in the work of my adult life. “Build thou beyond thyself, but first be sure that thou, thyself, be strong and healthy in body and mind.” To build, to work, to plan to do something, not for yourself, not for your own benefit, but “beyond thyself”–and when this idea permeates the mind, you begin to think in terms of a future. I began to think of a world beyond myself when I first took an interest in nursing the sick.

As a nurse

As a nurse, I was in contact with the ill and the infirm. I knew something about the health and disease of bodies, but for a long time, I was baffled at the tremendous personal problems of life, of marriage, of living, and of just being. Here indeed was a challenge to “build beyond thyself.” Where was I to begin? I found the answer at every door. For I began to believe there was something I could do toward increasing an understanding of these basic human problems. To build beyond myself, I must tap all inner resources of stamina and courage, of resolution within myself. I was prepared to face opposition, even ridicule, denunciation. But I had also to prepare myself, in defense of these unpopular beliefs, I had to prepare myself to face courts and even prisons. But I resolved to stand up, alone if necessary, against all the entrenched forces which opposed me.

Supported by patients; harassed by authorities

I started my battle some forty years ago. The women and mothers whom I wanted to help, also wanted to help me; they, too, wanted to build beyond the self, in creating healthy children and bringing them up in life to be happy and useful citizens. I believed it was my duty to place motherhood on a higher level than enslavement and accident. I was convinced we must care about people; we must reach out to help them in their despair.

For these beliefs I was denounced, arrested, I was in and out of police courts and higher courts, and indictments hung over my life for several years. But nothing could alter my beliefs. Because I saw these as truths, I stubbornly stuck to my convictions.

Something had to be done

No matter what it may cost in health, in misunderstanding, in sacrifice, something had to be done, and I felt that I was called by the force of circumstances to do it. Because of my philosophy and my work, my life has been enriched and full. My interests have expanded from local conditions and needs, to a world horizon, where peace on earth may be achieved when children are wanted before they are conceived. A new conciousness will take place, a new race will be born to bring peace on earth. This belief has withstood the crucible of my life’s joyous struggle. It remains my basic belief today.

This I believe–at the end, as at the beginning of my long crusade for the future of the human race.

From a speech made by Margaret Sanger, a population activist, in November 1953, known as "This I believe".
The original electronic source is at http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/news/this_i_believe.html

Listen to an

mp3 recording of Margaret Sanger's November 1953 broadcast

Summer Internships at the Margaret Sanger Papers Project in New York

Contact: Cathy Moran Hajo [mailto:cathy.hajo[AT]nyu.edu] Sent: Fri 16/01/2009 15:54 Subject: Summer Internships at the Margaret Sanger Papers Project in New York The Margaret Sanger Papers Project is pleased to announce its summer internship program for 2009. We seek applications from graduate or advanced undergraduate students to work with the editorial staff at the Project's offices in New York City. This is a wonderful opportunity for students to become proficient in primary and secondary research, and the process of editing historical documents for publication. Interns can apply for internships working with the book or digital edition.

BOOK INTERNSHIP: Interns will be working on Volume IV of the Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, covering the years 1920-1966 and focusing on her efforts to create a global birth control movement. Interns will work under the supervision of editors on specific topics, tracing people, places, events and issues covered in the documents. The research will be used to produce annotation and introductory material for the volume. Research will be conducted in the Project's offices, using the comprehensive microfilm edition and other primary sources, as well as at local libraries and with resources available on the Internet.

DIGITAL INTERNSHIP: We have two digital projects available for interns this summer.
1) We are preparing a digital edition on Margaret Sanger's 1922 trip to Japan for the Women and Social Movements web collection. Interns will transcribe, encode, and conduct research for essays and interpretation on the documents for this small collection.

2) We are also continuing work on our digital edition of Sanger's speeches and articles, focusing on texts written by Margaret Sanger in the 1930s.

Interns will be proofread the texts, add XML encoding, and draft subject index entries for the documents. Interns will conduct research as needed to verify dates, titles, and publication information, or to identify the names of people, organizations and books mentioned in the documents.

More information and application information can be located on our website, at:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/aboutmspp/internships.html The deadline for applications is March 1, 2009.

Cathy Moran Hajo, Ph.D.
Associate Editor/Assistant Director The Margaret Sanger Papers Project Department of History, New York University
53 Washington Square South New York, NY 10012 (212) 998-8666 (212) 995-4017 (fax)
[email protected] Visit our website at: http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger