July
13, 2005
A
report into private and public sector nurses found an increase in the reporting
of workplace violence and a nursing workforce "frustrated" and unable
to provide safe and quality care to its patients.
It
also found work stress was high and morale was poor and dropping.
The
study, Nurses: Worth Listening To, by the University of Southern
Queensland and the Queensland Nurses Union (QNU), was released today at the
union's annual conference.
It
will be given to the Morris inquiry into disgraced surgeon Jayant Patel and the
Forster review investigating Queensland's ailing health system.
The
report studied changes in the perceptions of 1,349 nurses about their jobs from
2001 to 2004.
In
its most alarming finding, many nurses had experienced workplace violence in
the past three months - 58 per cent in the aged care sector, 56 per cent in the
public sector and 43 per cent in the private sector.
"The
increasing levels of workplace violence would be the most significant change in
data from 2001 to 2004," the report said.
"This
study suggests that urgent attention is needed to areas such as workload and
workplace violence."
Overall,
81 per cent of nurses reported that nursing workloads were "quite
heavy" or "extremely heavy", while less than 16 per cent of
nurses believed they were quite or extremely well rewarded.
Morale
in the state's health facilities was seen as high by about 20 per cent of
nurses across all sectors, and poor by 40 per cent of aged care nurses, 36 per
cent of public nurses and 35 per cent of private nurses.
Low
morale was linked with poor remuneration, limited opportunities for promotion,
violence, a lack of resources and job insecurity, the report said.
Other
major findings included nurses being poorly rewarded for their skills, a lack
staff in the workplace, an inadequate skills mix, "rife" cost-cutting
and decreasing standards of care.
"The
overwhelming impression is of a workforce frustrated and unable to provide safe
and quality care to their patients, clients, and residents in the time
allocated," one of the report's authors, Professor Desley Hegney, told the
conference.
The
results suggested Queensland would continue to face problems with the
recruitment and retention of its nurses, she said.
"It is great to have this research at our fingertips to be able to give to both these inquiries," QNU state secretary Gay Hawksworth said.
Source:
News.com.au; http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15918921-29277,00.html