Three years after securing a historic deal for wage equality that saw its aged care workers receive a pay rise of between 15 and 50%, New Zealand is seeking the same for its RNs.
Around 12,000 people have signed a petition launched by the New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA) as part of a month-long campaign calling on the Government to provide pay parity of RNs working in aged care, who earn an average of $10,000 less than their public hospital counterparts.
New Zealand aged care nurses’ salaries are linked to the funding that aged care homes received from their district health boards – a per bed per day rate which is based on the level of care each resident was assessed for and covers a range of costs, including nurses’ pay.
In 2018, the Government increased pay and conditions for nurses in public hospitals and required hospitals to recruit 500 more nurses – resulting in the slow attrition of nurses from the aged care sector.
The pay increase would come with a price tag – around $70 million.
However, NZACA chief executive Simon Wallace says there is no excuse for the Government not to agree to the funding, citing the $4.37 billion awarded to the district health boards in this year’s Budget and the role that aged care nurses played in the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Last week’s report from the Independent Review of Covid-19 Clusters in Aged Residential Care stated that the Ministry of Health now acknowledges the substantive work of the aged residential care sector in preventing and managing the virus,” he stated.
New Zealand’s aged care sector had just 39 cases of coronavirus among over 36,000 residents in 650 facilities.
