Nurses’ union the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO), and the New Zealand Aged Care Association (NZACA) are readying to meet in a head-to-head debate on aged care as the election looms. The two “foes” see the debate as the chance to put aged-care
The Great Aged Care Debate, chaired by Sean Plunket, is being held on 2pm, Friday 11 November at St Andrews on the Terrace in Wellington. It follows press release “sparring” between the two organisations after the NZNO presented more than 10,000 signed aged-care charters to parliament in late September calling for safe staffing levels, fair pay, and a single nationally consistent training programme. The debate will focus on whether “quality or quantity” is the real crisis in the residential aged-care sector.
Huia Welton, the NZNO campaign advisor said while the NZACA was focused on bed numbers to meet population growth, the NZNO argued that beds were useless without the support of carers.
“You can’t just have beds, you have to have people providing the care,” said Welton. She said there were real problems with retention and sufficient remuneration of staff in the residential aged-care sector.
Martin Taylor, NZACA chief executive, said they wanted to draw attention to the gulf between ideological leanings and robust research.
“The nurses’ union fights very hard for its members and for those they care for and all respect to that,” Taylor said. “But they have no research to back up their drive for mandatory staffing levels, and NZACA believes their accusations about the poor quality of aged care are a completely unfounded smokescreen.”
He said district health boards and the association had “cooperative, high-quality research” that showed the need in the sector was for more beds to respond to a “massive influx of baby boomers”.
Welton said having the debate so close to the election meant the NZNO “absolutely intended to put as much pressure (as possible) on political parties to really hone their policies around residential aged care”.
“We want aged care to be an election issue – that’s no secret. We want the political parties to be judged on their aged-care policies.”
She said having the debate venue close to parliament was also symbolic. “Both the NZACA and the NZNO share (the knowledge) that politicians have a tremendous amount of influence in what happens in the future of aged care.”
The NZNO was in the process of sending out invitations to the public debate and hoped to see a good turnout from the public including the elderly as well as its own members.
