Your HACSU workplace delegate: Aiden Stalker

Aiden says he became a HACSU delegate in 2021 with a fellow colleague, who became the first delegates in their department. He says he was inspired to join HACSU based on a pay issue that they noticed when they were reviewing their award. He noticed the issue would affect many of his colleagues – and this experience prompted him to seek greater involvement in the union movement: “I’m an advocate of worker empowerment and becoming a delegate was the obvious choice to that end.”

Aiden Stalker is a HACSU delegate working for the Tasmanian Health Service (THS). He has two positions within the service, which are as a Specialist Pharamacist – Medicines and Information, and as a Rotational Clinical Pharamacist.

In his average work day in medical information he spends time researching and responding to complex medication related queries from clinicians about a range of different topics. This can look like researching complex drug interactions, screening and monitoring the stability of temperature sensitive medications, as well as providing training and education to other fellow pharmacists about specialised medication resources.

In his second, clinical pharmacy role, he performs medication reconciliation and review with a focus on medication safety and efficacy in the hospital. The average day looks like helping patients with their medication by answering questions, providing explanations upon their discharge and by coordinating medication supply requirements. Most recently, he says this has been stationed at the Hobart Repatriation Centre with geriatric patients, rehabilitation and palliative care.

He was a 2015 UTas graduate and has been with the THS since 2018. Before his role at the THS he was a student “playing drums in pubs and venues across Australia,” and also worked in community pharmacy in Northern Queensland to “experience a tropical sea change for a few years.”

He says his greatest achievement as a delegate has been seeing the “engagement in industrial related matters significantly improve in our department,” with membership since he became a delegate more than doubling. Aiden hopes that in the future active worker unionisation can become more normalised across the THS. “I want Tasmanians to have access to a robust and well-resourced health service. This means adequate resourcing to provide quality healthcare, reduce hospital admissions and the length of stay in hospital.” He says he believes that achieving these goals “cannot be at the expense of the worker, and achieving them is actually predicated on healthy, empowered workforce… ensuring wages keep up with the cost of living and being competitive with other jurisdictions are ways to do this.”

Outside of work Aiden is into music and playing the drums, he says he’s been trying to get his head around electronic drumming and music production lately. His favourite to recommend to others is Australian prog rock band, Karnivool and their “2009 banger – Goliath. If you like massive guitar sounds and interesting time-signatures, then it’s hard to go past!”