When will the NZ COVID-19 pandemic end? When NZ PAYS THE NURSES
I suspect having read the McKinsey article below that here in NZ we are rolling towards it becoming endemic rather than pandemic, starting from now and rolling through to the middle part of next year. Thankfully we have summer now for the next 6 months, which is definitely a benefit as being outdoors seems to be one of the best ways to stop the virus spreading so easily. Vaccinations obviously. Then we seem to need to train nurses - ICU nurses in particular - you can buy the beds, but nurses need to be trained, it takes a while and then we treat them poorly So let’s stop treating nurses badly, pay the nurses more as they so desperately deserve and then more people will want to do this rewarding but hard work, they will return from overseas, return to the workforce etc. So ‘PAY THE NURSES’, that’s my slogan for NZ to end the Pan and begin the En-demic stage of COVID. It’s the right thing to do both to stop the loss of lives and the horrendous financial and mental devastation of our current lock down strategy, not that it was wrong in the pre-Delta stage. OH and if people could get vaccinated that would save the nurses having to save their lives… but those people probably won’t be reading this…
We don’t have a choice with regard to paying Nurses much much better, more people are going to get sick. Our current ICU beds per 100,000 people is half of Australia’s or 10% of Germany’s at 4 per 100,000 people. The health system is the system lock downs are protecting, apart from our lives, it only has the capacity to cope with the current health issues NOT COVID. We are 6 months away from next winter when it is highly likely that the first wave of Delta will really surge through the country. This is not long enough to train enough nurses, we have to offer really attractive packages to bring new and already qualified nurses and practitioners to emigrate or return to NZ. Including housing allowances, pensions, insurances and good pay. Those are my thoughts this Monday evening anyway.
See this McKinsey article for a full analysis of ‘When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?’
