Telling the story of Fijian nurses' fight for better pay.

General secretary of the Fiji Nursing Association (FNA) Kuini Lutua received a very warm reception from conference delegates as she outlined the association's fight for better pay, including a five-day strike earlier this year. (See Striking for fair pay in Fiji, Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, September 2005, p29.)

Describing the visit by former NZNO organising services manager Laila Harre and communications adviser Lyndy McIntyre to Fiji in March as an answer to prayer, Lutua said the "two angels from Aotearoa" were able to help "on the very things we needed assistance on". Nurses in Fiji were one of the most lowly paid groups of civil servants. "We had been knocking on the Government's door and telling it that nurses were Leaving our shores for Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada and the United Arab Emirates because of poor salaries and working conditions. Our message was good health was our nation's wealth and without nurses we would not have good health." The FNA has 1350 members, 80 percent of the nursing workforce. Since she took up her post in 2001, the Government had ignored the association's claims. This year nurses' patience ran out and what began as a four-hour stop-page turned into a five-day strike, after the Minister of Health and the chief executive of the Ministry of Health did not take them seriously. "The Government threatened that the police and army were going to come but the police and army are our husbands."

Strike headquarters were the FNA's offices where, during the course of the strike, the nurses talked about how stressful their jobs were and how difficult it was to work with few resources. "There was great solidarity and unity. Everybody was speaking the same language."

Lutua said the nurses had been humbled by the support from the public in the form of food, cash and moral support. NZNO's fair pay campaign stickers and other resources were used by the FNA and it developed a postcard with a prayer on the back. Lutua said the FNA won its claims through divine intervention and the prayers said at prayer centres throughout the negotiations. She said nurses were "God's chosen people".

Lutua was accompanied by the FNA's inaugural nurse of year, Mereani Yaranamua, who used her prize of a complimentary ticket from Air Fiji to come to NZNO's conference, her first time out of Fiji. Yaranamua is the nurse manager at the 22-bed Vunisea Hospital on Fiji's fourth largest island and the closest to New Zealand, Kadavu. The island has a population of 11,000 and the hospital, with 13 nurses, has medical and surgical beds, four maternity beds and two paediatric beds. There is a health clinic attached to the hospital.

* On the second day of conference, Canterbury aged-care delegate Pat Parata presented the two FNA representatives with a collection taken up after their presentation. "Our struggle in aged care is really hard but not as hard as these women's struggle," she said before presenting them with the money and a Canterbury lei each. Overcome by the "unexpected" collection, Lutua said they had both been blessed in so many ways. They then sang a traditional Fijian song of farewell, Iso Lei.