SA nurses push on with industrial action
No elective surgery will be cancelled in Adelaide hospitals this week, the South Australian government says, despite plans by nurses to push on with industrial action.
Nurses will begin action from Monday with rallies at major hospitals and will also delay some elective procedures from Thursday in response to overcrowding, particularly in emergency departments.
Health Minister Stephen Wade says the South Australian Employment Tribunal has ruled that any move to stop surgery will be a risk to patient safety.
"No hospital elective surgery will be cancelled as a result of the bans," Mr Wade said.
But the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation said the tribunal ruling made no difference to its plans to limit operations for some low-category or low-risk patients.
"We will proceed with the action we previously planned," federation state secretary Elizabeth Dabars said.
"It is postponing people's genuinely non-urgent care.
"We would never place people at risk."
Ms Dabars said nurses were simply advocating for their patients.
"They don't want to be in this situation. They do not want to be doing this," she said.
Mr Wade said the government wouldn't stand in the way of other action, such as protest rallies, but described it as an "unhelpful distraction" from the serious business of providing better health care.
He said the government had already provided an extra 50 beds to help ease demand and would continue to work on medium to long-term solutions.
But Ms Dabars said a "circuit breaker" to solve the immediate problems in hospitals was still not forthcoming and nurses felt they were being forced to take action.
She said the extra beds the government had talked about had offered no respite.
"The crisis continues," she told reporters.
From Monday, nurses will hold rolling worksite rallies, first at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and will also instigate work-to-rule policies on such things as patient transfers.
Ambulance officers and hospital doctors have also raised concerns at the overcrowding, calling on the government to take urgent action.
