NPAA - Nurses' Professional Association of Australia

25/09/2025

📢 Nurses Speak Up: Hervey Bay Hospital in Crisis

Listen to this powerful ABC Wide Bay audio report exposing what’s happening inside Hervey Bay Hospital — corridor nursing, unsafe staffing, bed block and staff burnout. 👉 Watch below from 00:40

We hear and stand with our members. The voices behind the wards tell a story the system is trying to hide:

🔹Patients left in corridors, overflow spaces, and unmonitored areas
🔹Nurses forced to double bunk patients
🔹A system under strain as population growth, chronic disease, and aged care delays collide

This is a hospital system in collapse. But your voice helps make it visible.

It’s time to demand better:

🔹Safe staffing and skill mix
🔹Real movement on aged care & NDIS discharge delays
🔹An end to corridor care
🔹Strong protections for staff who speak out

📣 Share this. Tag the Minister. Let’s push for justice and safety—for patients, for nurses, for our community.

Local news, updated weekdays at 6:30am.

16/09/2025

Queensland Health nurses will soon vote on EB12. Read our full update below 👇

As an NPAQ member:

✅ You will receive the opportunity to formally vote

✅ You will receive all wage increases, back pay, and improved working conditions

✅ This is a yes or no vote that affects all Queensland Health nurses and midwives

✅ Your vote matters in determining whether this agreement adequately addresses our profession's needs

The Queensland Government and QNMU have recently reached a pay agreement. While the QNMU members have accepted this deal, it's important to understand that NPAQ was not permitted to be part of these negotiations due to legislation passed by Labor in 2022.

12/09/2025

Front page today: Far From Friendly.

Nursing Staff and Doctors have raised serious concerns, and the BMA said a no confidence resolution was expressed by the VMO's.

Thank you to every nurse and doctor who completed our survey and spoke up — your courage drives this work.

We stand with you. We’ll keep pushing for independent oversight, good governance, psychological safety at work, and safe services for Bundaberg.

09/09/2025

🧵 WA Housing Crisis: Nurses Locked Out of Home Ownership

“What can you afford if you’re on your own and don’t have other means of income?” — Nurse Rebecca Pizzey

Frontline workers are being priced out of traditionally affordable suburbs in Perth. Nurses, teachers, police — the people who hold this community together — are being pushed further from their workplaces and deeper into financial hardship.

💥 This is not just a housing issue. It's a workforce crisis. It's a gender issue. It's a justice issue.

📉 Inflation has eroded our wages — effectively a pay cut.
🏘️ House prices have nearly doubled in five years.
🚗 Nurses are commuting hours or couch surfing.
👩‍👧‍👦 Single mums are caught between shift work and childcare chaos.
💰 The emotional toll is driving good nurses out of the profession.

📢 Kara Thomas, NPAA President, says it plainly:

“A calling to serve your community doesn’t put food on the table or a roof over your head.”

🏥 Wayne Evans (SOPAA) echoes what we’ve been screaming for years — when essential workers can’t afford to live near work, the system is unsustainable.

We demand:

📈 Wages indexed to the real cost of living

🏠 Affordable housing for nurses near hospitals

🚸 Flexible childcare for shift workers

💪 Respect and reform — not rhetoric

🗣️ Nurses aren’t asking for luxuries. We’re demanding what’s fair.
Ratios. Rights. Respect. Housing.

27/08/2025

President Kara Thomas has spoken with 4BC Brisbane about the mass layoffs of ENs by BlueCare. We are already hearing reports of staff being pressured to work outside their scope of practice - this puts both staff and residents at risk.

NPAQ will continue to fight for Bluecare ENs and all nurses Queensland-wide.

Bluecare has made the decision to slash the number of enrolled nurses across its Queensland facilities. The Qld Nurses Union has claimed that 81 permanent enrolled nurse jobs would be lost at 21 of BlueCare’s 40 centres. Kara Thomas, President of the Nurses Professional Association, joined Bill Mc...

26/08/2025

NURSES!
This is your final roll call…
One hour today could change the way you live, work, and feel for years to come.
Join Burnout to Balance: Building Your Wellbeing Blueprint
The Missing Link in Nurse Wellbeing Isn’t More Resilience. It’s Insight.
🗓 Today – Wednesday 27 August
⏰ 4–5 PM AEST
💻 Live & free
Register NOW — https://hubs.la/Q03DN9j20
You’re not just surviving anymore.
Let’s go.

25/08/2025

Are you a nurse stuck in survival mode?
If you answered yes… read on.
Every week, you wake up already calculating how to make it through your shift.

Without breaking your energy… your health… your relationships… and the joy you once felt in nursing.

You already know where this road leads... burnout, resentment, and the fear that maybe this is all there is.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

That’s why we're running Burnout to Balance: Building Your Wellbeing Blueprint with Nursing the Nurse.

In this free, one-hour live (CPD eligible) session, we'll show you how to break the cycle and create a routine that works for your life.
1. The insight that makes all the difference when resilience isn’t enough.
2. Practical steps to protect your mental and physical energy.
3. A clear starting point you can use immediately after the session.
Live Wednesday 27 August, 4–5 PM AEST.

Spots are limited 👉https://hubs.la/Q03DN9dp0

22/08/2025

You know that moment when your alarm goes off and every part of you wants to call in “sick”... Not because you’re unwell, but because you just can’t imagine getting through another shift like yesterday?

You didn’t become a nurse to live in this cycle of exhaustion, guilt, and just getting through.

Yet somehow, your days off feel just as heavy as your shifts and you’re left wondering if this is just “how nursing is.”

It’s not.
You’re already the kind of nurse who gives everything to the people you care about. You just haven’t had the insight or tools that fit your life as a shiftworker… until now.

Join us with Jeanelle Classen from Nursing the Nurse for Burnout to Balance: Building Your Wellbeing Blueprint; a free webinar designed for nurses who want lasting work-life harmony without adding more “to-dos” or relying on surface-level resilience.

You’ll learn:
1. How to map out your current balance vs your desired state
2. The 7 essential wellbeing domains to protect your own wellbeing.
3. How to reclaim time for the things (and people) that matter most.
Happening Wednesday 27 August, 4–5 PM AEST. Seats are limited.

https://hubs.la/Q03DN92n0

21/08/2025

Most nurses don't know how to leave work behind.

You wake up already tired.
Your body aches before your feet hit the floor.
And you still have to pull on your scrubs and push through another shift like you’ve got nothing left in the tank.

You’re the kind of nurse who always shows up for your patients, your family, your team.
But lately, it’s been costing you. Not just in energy… but in the moments you’re missing at home and the way you barely recognise the woman in the mirror.

That’s exactly why we're teaming up with Nursing the Nurse to run a free online session:
Burnout to Balance: Building Your Wellbeing Blueprint

The Missing Link in Nurse Wellbeing Isn’t More Resilience. It’s Insight.
In this 60 minute CPD eligible session, you’ll discover:
1. Why “pushing through” is silently draining you (and how to stop it)
2. A simple shift to protect your energy even with rotating rosters.
3. How to leave work at the door and stop bringing work stress home

Live on Wednesday 27 August, 4–5 PM AEST:
https://hubs.la/Q03DN9jR0
If you’re done running on empty, this is your turning point.

21/08/2025

🚨 Allegations of abuse and cover-ups at Queensland Children’s Hospital 🚨

The Courier Mail has revealed shocking claims of physical and emotional abuse of children as young as four at QCH’s Child and Youth Mental Health Unit. Even worse — whistleblowers say complaints were ignored, evidence hidden, and staff silenced.

A nurse told us: “There is a well-known culture of fear that strongly discourages staff from formally reporting safety issues.”

They also described unsafe practices — including children being locked outside because the seclusion room was broken — and warned that staff who raise concerns are punished instead of heard.

This is the cost of a health system that buries problems instead of fixing them. Nurses are left traumatised. Patients - vulnerable children - are left unsafe.

NPAQ stands with every nurse who has spoken out despite fear of retaliation. We will not let these voices be silenced.

👉 It’s time for transparency.
👉 It’s time for accountability.
👉 It’s time to protect the carers and the kids.

https://hubs.la/Q03DN8RC0

The alleged abuse of Queensland’s youngest and most vulnerable mental health patients will be investigated by the state’s corruption watchdog, amid claims senior staff covered up the mistreatment of children for years.

21/08/2025

Nurses, please stop sacrificing yourselves for everyone else.

On Wednesday 27 August, we're teaming up with Nursing the Nurse for a live online session designed just for nurses who are tired of surviving and ready to build a life they can actually enjoy.

It’s called Burnout to Balance: Building Your Wellbeing Blueprint and in just 60 minutes, you’ll learn:
1. Why “pushing through” is quietly draining you (and what to do instead)
2. A walkthrough of the 7 essential wellbeing domains so you can protect your energy and career longevity.
3. How to create better work-life harmony in a way that actually sticks.

Registration is open now (and spots are limited!)
Secure your place today and take your first step from burnout to balance.
🗓 Wednesday 27 August 2025
⏰ 4–5 PM AEST
💻 Live & free: https://hubs.la/Q03DN8hN0

18/08/2025

🚨 This is not safe. This is not acceptable.

A child in extreme pain, given Endone and hooked up to an IV drip, was sent back to sit in the waiting room at Gladstone Hospital because there were no beds.

NPAQ President Kara Thomas said:

“A child in pain, given Endone and a cannula, then left in a waiting room — this is not safe, and it is not acceptable. Our frontline nurses are trained to escalate risk, to speak up for safety, but they feel ignored. Families are now going public because the system is beyond stretched — it’s failing.”

Nurses have been sounding the alarm for months about bed block and “corridor medicine.” They’ve been ignored. Now the public can see the truth.

The government must stop gaslighting staff and start fixing the crisis in our hospitals.

👉 Read the full story here:

A child in severe pain was placed in the public waiting room at Gladstone Hospital emergency department after being given pain killers and put onto an intravenous drip due to bed block — just weeks after a hospital executive downplayed nurses claims of “corridor medicine”.