The new resources were launched by WorkSafe Victoria Chief Executive Mr Greg Tweedly late last year at the ANF (Victorian Branch) Nurses Return to Work in Hospitals Conference. The resources were also launched by Ballarat East MP Geoff Howard at the ANF's regional conference.
The initiatives provide best practice guides, solutions and practical tools for injured and ill nurses, their employers, their medical practitioners and other stakeholders to improve return to work outcomes. They focus on identifying what nurses can do, rather than what they cannot do, and are aimed at supporting the nurse or midwife to return or remain working in a clinical capacity following an injury or illness. Where this is not possible, the resources focuses on rehabilitation and identifing a range of alternative nursing role opportunities.
The initiatives are the result of the three-year project, funded by the WorkSafe Victoria's RTW Fund. ANF conducted the project in partnership with the employer representative, the Victorian Hospitals' Industrial Association, and with the support of the Injured Nurses Support Group and occupational physician Dr Helen Sutcliffe.
ANF (Vic Branch) Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said: "Until now an injured nurse or midwife would lodge a claim for workers compensation and participate in return to work with limited knowledge of their entitlements and without understanding their rights and responsibilities within the system.
"No one has wanted to give this information to injured nurses or midwives out of fear that they will want to claim the entitlement. This exacerbates and reinforces the financial impact of the injury on the employer. The injured nurse is given non-nursing tasks, such as filing and answering phones, and believes she has no value in the workplace which can have a demoralising effect.
"Relegating a skilled and experienced nurse to paperwork or letting them leave nursing all together is a waste of skilled nurses and a waste of money, a career severed and there is absolutely no excuse for it," she said.
