Sickness presenteeism in a New Zealand hospital.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to assess the attitudes of hospital clinical staff to acute personal illness. METHODS: A self-reported questionnaire was developed. Four hundred clinical staff employed by the district health board (DHB) who met the inclusion criteria who were randomly selected. Data were collected and analysed using SPSS software. Ethical approval was obtained from the Lower South Regional Ethics Committee and from the DHB Health Research Office. RESULTS: Doctors were more likely to exhibit sickness presenteeism (SP)--i.e. working despite being sick--than any other occupational group at the DHB. Two main reasons were given for not taking sick leave: staff did not believe they were unwell enough to justify taking leave and they did not want to increase the workload of others. The majority of study participants would not contact anyone for advice about whether to take leave. CONCLUSION: This study provides evidence that SP, especially in doctors, is prevalent in the DHB and is similar to findings from elsewhere. Low rates of clinical staff contacting someone for advice on coming to work whilst ill could be targeted to improve infection control.

[Generation 2000 plus: at the end of the day I count(?)]. / Generation ZweitausendPlus: unterm Strich zähl ich(?).

For all employees in the health system the clearly noticeable alterations are politically controlled and particularly subject to economic aspects. Simultaneously changes are also occurring at the social and legislative levels as well as a constant and continuous progress in medicine. This article attempts to demonstrate the background for this change and its influence on the upheaval in the health system.

Alert--return of 1990s healthcare reform.

Remember the 1990s? In case you don't, there was a major recession and hospitals found themselves squeezed for funds. A movement called "healthcare reform" was instituted across Canada to reduce costs and balance budgets. Nurses bore the brunt of the so-called reforms, which resulted in * merging of hospitals and loss of nursing positions; * elimination of nurse managers' positions and expansion of the span of control of those who remained, so that they found themselves managing two to four units and responsible for 100 to 200 nurses; * elimination of RN positions and substitution of licensed practical nurses or non-regulated workers; * replacing full-time RN positions with part-time positions without fringe benefits; * absence of nursing positions for new graduates and nurses who had been displaced, driving them to seek employment in the United States (the majority did not return to Canada); * collapse of the applicant pool to schools of nursing, which took a decade to rebound to pre-reform days (the drop in graduates over several years during this period is in part responsible for the shortage of nurses today); * dramatic loss of job satisfaction by nurses, which has still not recovered; and * a prevalent sense that nurses were disposable and mattered little in the broad healthcare system.