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Nurses, midwives and health care assistants walked off the job in Thames on December 3. Photo: ALICE PARMINTER

Thames Valley nurses join nationwide strike

Thames Hospital nurses walked off the job for the second time in four months, during a nation-wide eight-hour strike last week.

With the exception of life-preserving services, every public hospital and Te Whatu Ora facility in New Zealand found itself without nursing staff from 11am to 7pm on December 3.

The strike action, which involved an estimated 36,000 nurses, midwives and health care assistants nationwide, was taken in response to Te Whatu Ora’s recent offer of the equivalent of a half-a-per cent pay rise in 2025 and up to one per cent in 2026.

“This is well below the rate of inflation and amounts to a pay cut for nurses and health workers,” a statement from the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) read.

Strikers were also protesting Te Whatu Ora’s intent to pause the use of its care capacity demand management system, or CCDM.

The software calculates the number of staff needed on any given shift to ensure safe staffing. The NZNO said without it, there would be fewer healthcare professionals on duty, which would put patient and whānau safety and wellbeing at risk.

The last strike at Thames Hospital took place on July 30. Then, nurses were protesting the working conditions in the emergency department, where they had only 21.51 full-time equivalent (FTE) nurses covering a roster that required 43.8 FTE nurses to operate safely.

Following that strike action, the department was granted another 10 nurses.

Nurse and NZNO delegate Anoopa Antony said she and her colleagues were unhappy about walking off the job, but they felt they had little choice.

“We have to leave the patients in the ward, and we have to come for this, to stand together,” she said.

“[Nurses have] been doing incredible jobs, they’re lifesaving every day and we want everyone, the public, to stand together with us for fair pay and safe staffing. I think this is for everyone.”

Nurse delegate Elizabeth Brundrit said the pay offer was “horrendous”, but she was mostly concerned about losing the CCDM system.

“[Te Whatu Ora] has been playing this programme, they’ve realised how understaffed everyone is, so now they’re not wanting to action it,” she said.

“They’re wanting to use a different tool, which is based on pool nurses, which we don’t have. So it doesn’t work.”

The NZNO will now be enacting rolling strikes throughout the country from December 10-19, one district at a time. Nurses at Thames Hospital and other Te Whatu Ora facilities in the Waikato will be striking on December 17 from 1-5pm.