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Charter Care versus a Charter for Carers

Health Select Committee Report -
Issues: Pay and Conditions | Training | Safe Staffing | Transparency

Scoop Audio:
1)Statement from SFWU Representative
2)Health Ministry Statement

By Mark P. Williams

Today the Health Select Committee heard submissions from members of the Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota (SFWU) and New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO).

The primary proposals the union members put forward were as follows:

• increased transparency as to how money is spent within the sector, to ensure that public funding to private care providers is spent only on care provision;
• fair pay to provide equal remuneration for workers doing the same job;
• training recognition so that qualifications can be compared more easily between different providers and against a national standard;
• and the development of clear, standardised safe staffing levels for the provision of care.

Alastair Duncan of the SFWU described the health care provision for the elderly in New Zealand as something uncomfortably akin to a charter school system, a public-private partnership in which "increasingly multinationals, equity firms and off-shore controlled businesses are banking on the largest growth sector of this economy": the care of the elderly. He presented a stark case of the social practicalities of care being subordinated to the demands of the market.

Representatives from the Health Ministry then had the opportunity to respond and to answer committee questions in turn. The Ministry emphasised that New Zealand spends more on aged care provision that the OECD average and had increased its spending in recent years, from $1.1bn in 2007 to $1.5bn in 2012. They also wished to establish that in the case of training there were various provisions which covered the same core competencies but that establishing national standards was a desirable extension of this. The representatives stated that in this instance its own position was compromised by complicating factors such as the diversity of private organisations involved in aged care making up the vast majority of providers compared to the lower levels of public DHB involvement.

The central dichotomy between the social demands of caring for the aged and the demands of the market was thrown into clearest relief at the end of the questions to the Health Ministry representatives when comments by a member of the select committee provoked an outraged interruption from the carers present. The committee member put forward the opinion that an Aged Care worker in Wellington and one in a more remote rural community should not expect the same pay because they were working in very different markets and that in rural areas people could "choose" to work for lower levels of pay. This prompted a response from the Chair that these arguments had been "killed" in 2004, "a nurse is a nurse is a nurse".

However, the panel member persisted with the market comparison, linking it to the question of standardised training and education by suggesting that there ought to be a scale of separation based on levels of qualification. At this point, a care giver in the audience stood and spoke; she made the point that carers perform many of the same tasks on a day to day basis as nurses, from administering drugs and morphine to "wiping people's backsides", and went on to say that carers are doing the jobs that nurses don't want to do for less money. She spoke about the importance of recognising and valuing the passion for care that she and others had as being worth more than $13 per hour. Her voice was added to by others who demanded that the committee "set the standard now" if they want to be able to ensure the best levels of care for themselves and their relatives in the future.

Here then was the key to today's proceedings: whether the provision of care for the elderly, a group that everyone will ultimately join, can be resolved with the desire of private organisations to produce profits in a competitive market. At one point during his questioning, SFWU representative Alastair Duncan was asked directly whether he considered himself to be in a market or not. He responded firmly that he did not like it but that nevertheless it was a market.

We will all certainly age, and if we are fortunate enough to live a long time we will need care. The question which was being negotiated today was how the resources and skills required by an aging population can found within New Zealand's current system, but the underlying problem, one with wider implications, remains one of priority: whether social needs or market demands will set the terms for care of the elderly.

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SFWU: Statement and Questions

Click a link to play audio (or right-click to download) in either
MP3 format or in OGG format.

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Heath Ministry: Statement and Questions

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MP3 format or in OGG format.

ENDS

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