Thursday 24 April 2008

This is called "free market economy"

As reported by ABC Online, aged care nurses might be tempted to move into the hosiptal sector if they're offered more money.

Well, this is about the least surprising thing I have ever heard in my life. When I saw the heading "Aged care nurses neglected" I wondered which aspect of third-world wages, attrocious working conditions including regular assault by residents (sorry, clients (sorry, customers))), incompetent union, poor training and bewildering constant change in fairly hippy-philosophy-driven working practices they were talking about.

But no. All the article is saying is that if Queensland Health is aggressive about recruiting nurses into the hospital system by making the financial rewards more attractive, then aged care nurses might siddle sideways and leave aged care even worse-off than it already is.

Deal with it. Plenty of aged care nurses of the non-Registered variety are burning the candle at both ends working and studying in order to upgrade their qualifications from AIN (Assistant In Nursing - read: "shit-kicker") to EEN (Endorsed Enrolled Nursing - something about being able to administer drugs and work in hospitals) precisely in order to flee aged care at the first available opportunity. This does not make the prospect of holding onto nurses, in the face of even extra tea breaks as an incentive, look very good. Keeping aged care nursing pay in line with hospital pay will be a start, but won't benefit the Personal Carers/AINs who do most of the actual work and won't fix a system that is basically a bit broken.

Monday 21 April 2008

"Turn the other cheek, that I may smite it."

Yeah, sure, Christians are peace-loving people who should have sole say over the laws in this country.

I really don't think so.

Some of the comments are especially entertaining.

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