COVID babies , lure of high-paying quarantine jobs put stress on Darwin nurses
Darwin hospital wards are bursting at the seams as a surge in COVID baby births puts extra pressure on staff at a time when nurses are being lured away by higher-paying jobs at the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility.
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation says midwives are struggling to keep up with the increase in COVID babies due to the staff shortages.
The union s NT branch secretary Cath Hatcher says general practice nurses are also being poached by the quarantine facility.
But the NT Health Department says the birthing suite at the Royal Darwin is not over capacity.
Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch)
Come clean: Morrison Government plan to vaccinate the private aged care workforce seems never on their radar
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch) is calling on the Morrison Government to reveal the scope of the multiple private contracts to vaccinate the private aged care workforce.
In a media release 107 days ago Federal Health and Aged Care Minister Greg Hunt said residential aged care residents and workers would be vaccinated in their facility.
In the same release Federal Aged Care Services Minister Richard Colbeck said the ‘Australian Government would be responsible for leading the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccination program in the aged care sector’.
More than five million Melburnians are set for at least another week of lockdown, and hundreds of casual workers and foreign students are lining up for food relief in Melbourne as they face a second week with reduced or no income.
Residents at four aged care homes in Melbourne were confined to their rooms on Monday after the federal government allowed staff to once again work across multiple sites.