Nurse hiring pledge sham

THE State Government had broken a deal to hire more nurses in public hospitals so it could save money, Liberal health spokesman Brett Whiteley said yesterday.

Mr Whiteley said a deal brokered by Premier Paul Lennon at the height of last year's nurses dispute had still not been honoured.

"There is no excuse for this process to take six months," he said.

"The real reason for the prolonged delay would be to save the (Health) Department money," Mr Whiteley said.

"The Premier cut this deal so he should be equally aware it hasn't been fulfilled."

Australian Nursing Federation state secretary Neroli Ellis confirmed the promised nurses had not all been employed.

"It's been frustrating because that was six months ago and those positions are now not all in place," she said.

"It's not a shortage of nurses, we know nurses are wanting to come to Tasmania but will only come for permanent positions.

"These aren't permanent and the problem is the recruitment process, the inefficiency of the bureaucracy.

"These positions were promised by the Premier, he actually committed to putting them in immediately . . . here we are six months later and only half the positions are in place."

Health Minister Lara Giddings said significant progress was being made to recruit the nurses.

"While finding 75 new nurses is a significant recruitment task, we have almost reached half way and are on target to complete recruitment processes in coming weeks," Ms Giddings said.

"As always, however, you can only recruit when you can find staff to fill positions and it is well understood that there are critical shortages of some nursing specialities in Australia and around the world."

By David Killick

Article from www.news.com.au