I am infuriated to read of more cuts to beds within MidCentral DHB. My wife works at Palmerston North Hospital as a senior nurse on a busy ward. She very often comes home over an hour late as her workload is unable to be managed safely within her 8 hour day. If she attempts (which is rare) to claim overtime she is told it will not be paid because her trendcare hours do not reflect the need for her to stay late! Trendcare is a computerised system (which adds to the nurse's workload)that predicts how much nursing time each patient SHOULD (I say should as patients are human beings and are individuals and do not always "fit" a computer programme), require. If the nurse does predict hours that are out of the norm she/he is often challenged about the increased hours required.

I understand that cuts have to be made but not to the detriment of the patients. My wife often comes home stating that she gets to do the bare minimum for her patients, gone are the days when she could sit & chat & carry out the extra little touches. With the extremely reduced Care Assistant hours and the huge increase in Hospital Aide hours the impact on patient care has been again detrimental. Care assistants were a vaulable resource to help nursing staff with showering, toileting etc whereas Hospital Aides are not able to help in these areas what so ever. That change was not well thought out, these change have to ensure that effective cost cutting is made and that the changes will not effect frontline staff or the patients.

How about this idea, cut the CEO's, Director of Nursing, and their PA's (I assume they have personnal assistants), & Service managers hours in half and other management who fit in this category. Not Bed numbers which ultimately means nursing staff. Charge Nurses, nurse educators and the likes are frontline staff and therefore no cuts should be made. Cutting CEO, DON hours will not be to the detriment of the patients and grassroots staff. The running of wards & departments will go back to being run by the people who know what's going on rather than people who sit in offices away from the frontline & monitor what's happening via a computer! and conjuring up more paperwork for the nurses to a use to assess their patients which in turn leads to less hands on patient hours.

As you can tell I am appalled at the prospect of more cuts to nursing staff as a nurses workload is already stretched to the limits. if more staff cuts take place I will encourage my wife to seek work somewhere else. Why should she work extra hours for an organisation who shows zero loyalty to hardworking caring professionals.

Tony Ryall promised to make backroom (administration) of health more efficient and put the money into frontline services. I'd like to hear what the Minister has to say about these plans. What about our elected Board members - what do they have to say? What about the people of the Midcentral region - what do you want?

Give us some hard facts and figures about where the money goes, why we're in deficit, then we can decide what to cut: services, the Board and CEO, or perhaps the Minister!