Nurses turned their back on the Health Minister during his speech at the annual New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) conference, coming in the wake of a report revealing hospitals nationwide were short close to 600 nurses per shift over the past year.
The report, authored by Infometrics for the NZNO was based on Health NZ data from 1.69 million shifts in 59 public hospitals between 2022 and 2024.
Understaffing was found to be most common in the Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley district, with 51% of shifts short-staffed between January 2022 and November 2024. Counties Manukau followed on 48%, while Taranaki was the lowest on 19%.
Cancer, heart and trauma patients faced the most understaffed wards and emergency departments in the past three years.
The report came two weeks after 36,000 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants walked off the job over concerns about staffing levels, safety, and a pay offer described as "a massive backwards step".
Nurses on strike outside Health Minister Simeon Brown's electorate office in Pakuranga were met by a sign on his windows that said the union's industrial action was disrupting more than 13,000 surgeries and appointments.
Brown touched on the strike in his speech to the NZNO conference in Wellington today, telling a story of a premature newborn who was unable to have skin-to-skin contact with their mother due to the industrial action.
"That is the real human cost of striking. We can't afford a health system where patients are caught in the middle, we must and need to do better for patients."
This prompted one nurse to stand up, walk to the back of the room, and turn her back.
"I just thought, 'don't come here and guilt trip me'," Rangi Blackmoore-Tufi told 1News.
"I'm not going to listen to this. You're not listening to us. You're not listening to the message that our strike is actually saying, so I'm just going to get up."
Blackmoore-Tufi was joined by other nurses at the back of the conference space.
"When I first walked there, I thought, 'I can do this', and then I felt the warmth. I couldn't see the numbers, but I felt like there was a collective there, and I felt like wasn't the only one who thought the same thing."
Responding to today's protest and report, Brown said there were "tough conversations" to be had.
"The reality is, they have been taking industrial action, I expressed my views in regard to the impact of strikes on patients. Thousands of patients have had care delayed, hips, knees, cataract operations delayed. And ultimately, that is a very real human cost, which I believe needed to be called out."
He said the report showed there had been a "significant hiring" of nurses in recent years.
"Those numbers were a lot higher back in 2022. They have been reducing. That is a positive step forward, but it also highlights, and I agree, there is more work to do, and that's why we're focused on frontline services."
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