Branch Organiser

Workload Professional Obligations Workloads Exception Report

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:57:01 GMT

POWER workload document here

Media Release

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 07:54:39 GMT

Media Release Nurse Safety 2/4/26

Nurse Safety Media Release

Nurses and midwives in the Northern Territory are being forced to carry the consequences of systemic failure and it is putting their safety at risk every single day.

This week ANMFNT attended ED in RDH and were told that staff are working in conditions where threats, abuse and violence are not isolated incidents, but routine. ANMFNT have heard directly from members that incidents are so frequent they are no longer reported, because the reporting system is time-consuming and does not lead to meaningful change.

Security arrangements are inadequate and serve a decorative purpose. Contracted security staff are not able to touch patients meaning they are unable to respond effectively to violence, and nurses report delays of up to 15 minutes after activating duress alarms before a security guard attends. The system is so broken that the team leader in ED doesn’t even know that a nurse in triage has pressed the duress alarm until a nurse coordinator comes running through asking where the duress is. That is unacceptable.

ANMFNT was told that Emergency Department staff have reported these issues to NT worksafe with little to no action.

This week, a nurse reported that a patient said ‘he was going to rape me that he was going to kill my children that if he ever saw me out side the hospital he would slit my throat’. Police witnessed this event and informed the nurse that reporting this threat wasn’t a priority and she was to report the threat via the 1300 number. As of yesterday that nurse had not been contacted by the police to follow up on this threat.

The member further stated “I have extreme concerns (and I'm not the only one), that a worker is going to be stabbed within the department, that one of my nurses who is set up to fail every single day due to the extreme workload and unsafe work environment they have to come to work in will commit suicide due to the ongoing psychological distress this causes them”.

No worker should ever face this level of threat in their workplace and the ANMFNT have escalated this report to the NT Health department

Emergency departments are operating well beyond safe capacity. Nurses report running at crisis levels at all times, with patients waiting far beyond acceptable timeframes. Despite this, nurses continue to monitor and care for patients in waiting rooms because they refuse to let someone die waiting for care. They shoulder this burden and they genuinely fear that they will be held accountable if there is a sentinel event. I want to be clear – when a patient dies from inadequate care it will be a system failure and one that has been raised a number of times.

We are calling for immediate action for RDH Emergency Department:

1. An immediate investigation by NT WorkSafe.

2. Immediate review of security capability and response times
3. Duress systems that alert nurse team leaders in real time
4. System-wide solutions to reduce unsafe pressure on emergency departments

Let me be clear: nurses and doctors are not the problem. They are holding this system together under extraordinary pressure.

The Northern Territory Government must take responsibility. Continuing to rely on the goodwill of exhausted staff while conditions deteriorate is not leadership. You are directly responsible for nurses leaving the profession and that’s a disgrace. Nurses come into this profession with good intentions and leave with trauma and disillusion.

Our members deserve to be safe at work. That is the standard, and it is not negotiable.

Authorised by Heidi Crisp

Branch Secretary, ANMFNT

2/4/26

Enterprise Agreement Blog

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 07:08:37 GMT

Nurses and Midwives EA 2026-2029 Negotiations updates found here

24/3/26

Negotiations started today for the OCPE NT Enterprise Agreement.

To keep the log of claims and conversation confidential I have opened up a page on the member portal,

Please log in to the portal and follow the NTPS EA NEWS

19/3/26

Welcome to the Nurses and Midwives Enterprise Agreement 2026–2029 Negotiations Blog

This blog is your space for clear updates, honest answers, and real insight into what’s happening on the ground as we enter negotiations. We know how important this Agreement is, not just for your pay and conditions, but for the future of nursing and midwifery in the Northern Territory.

This week, we’ve sent out the endorsement survey for the Log of Claims. This survey closes on 23 March 2026 , and it is critical. The Log of Claims is the foundation of everything we will take into negotiations—it is your collective voice, formalised.

How was the Log of Claims developed?
It started with you. More than 800 members responded to the initial survey, generating over 350 pages of claims, concerns, and ideas . Every response was carefully reviewed, grouped into key themes, and distilled into the 8-page Log of Claims we are now putting forward.

“Why isn’t my specific claim included?”
This is a fair and important question. When representing such a diverse workforce, our responsibility is to identify and prioritise the issues that are most widely and deeply felt . That means not every individual claim can appear in the final document—but the core issues affecting the greatest number of members are strongly represented. This is how we build the strongest possible case at the bargaining table.

And it works.

In the last Enterprise Agreement, you delivered real wins including :

A new retention bonus for all NT nurses and midwives, with higher payments for those in rural and remote areas
A 3% pay rise , achieved despite the government initially pushing for a wage freeze
Exemplary Practice increases
Professional Development Allowance increases
Shift penalty increases, from 22.5 to 25% Night duty and from 15-17% Late shift.

Those outcomes didn’t happen by chance. They happened because members spoke, stood together, and backed their union .

That’s the power we bring into this round of negotiations.

When we act collectively, we are not just participants, we are a force that cannot be ignored.

Now is the time to engage, to have your say, and to stand with your colleagues.

EA Survey Log of Claims

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:03:30 GMT

Please find the Enterprise Agreement DRAFT Log of Claims here

New Paragraph

CINAHL Free Professional Publications

Wed, 19 Nov 2025 00:03:20 GMT

CINAHL

19th November 2025

Nurses, Midwives, Allied Health Professionals, researchers, nurse educators and students depend on the CINAHL Database to research their subject areas from this authoritative index of nursing and allied health journals.

New Free database for all professionals. So many research papers, journals etc to obtain and read.

Please enter the 'Member Portal', then top tab to 'Member Benefits', then scroll down to the CINAHL button.

There is also a webinar (30 mins) to help you navigate and utilise CINAHL to it's full capacity

19th November 2025

Cath Hatcher

ANMF NT

Branch Secretary