Illawarra nurses say they will join a statewide 24 hour strike on Thursday to draw attention to the staffing crisis which has left managers scrambling to fill shifts at Wollongong Hospital "every shift, every day on every ward".
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More than 160 branches of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association (NSWNMA) voted to strike - the second in six weeks - with members planning to hold public rallies on Thursday, March 31.
A rally will be held outside Wollongong Hospital, with members of the public invited to support nurses in their march to MacCabe Park from 9.30am.
The union says the strike will go ahead, despite directions on Friday from the state's Industrial Relations Commission that nurses must call off the action. The union was also ordered to issue a public statement retracting its direction to strike and publish on its social media pages a direction that members must comply with the IRC orders.
Secretary of the NSWNMA Wollongong Hospital branch, Genevieve Stone said nurses had been "forced into a corner" by the NSW Government.
Emergency, ICU and maternity are the areas that should be the best staffed, and they are the worst. We have ED nurses reporting ambulances ramped up for hours, no waiting room for patients and 10 hour plus waits."
- Genevieve Stone, NSWNMA
The union has been locked in a decade-long dispute over pay and staffing levels that has been made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The main thing for us is that there are vacancies managers are scrambling to fill on every shift, every day on every ward," she said.
"We are in staffing crisis and we want the people of Wollongong to know that we aren't coping."
"Emergency, ICU and maternity are the areas that should be the best staffed, and they are the worst.
"We have ED nurses reporting ambulances ramped up for hours, no waiting room for patients and 10 hour plus waits."
Reports of these problems have become frequent in recent weeks, with paramedics highlighting "bed block" at Wollongong Hospital and patients complaining of "horrendous" conditions in the emergency department.
Ms Stone said nurses, who had been working double shifts and coming in on days off to maintain basic staffing levels, felt that the government was "exploiting our empathy".
"We have been working the extra hours for our patients, and so we don't leave our colleagues short, but we've been screaming about this for years, even before the pandemic," she said.
"Our local health district is taking measures to try and assist the dire situation - they are trying their best - but it is very much a fend for yourself situation because the state government isn't helping."
She said nurses did not decide to strike lightly.
"Every nurses strike we lose money," she said. "We always have skeleton staff during strikes and patients will always be looked after - we want people to know that we are not just doing this for ourselves, we do want our working conditions, but it's about patient safety."
NSWNMA General Secretary Brett Holmes, said nurses and midwives were deeply distressed by the government's refusal to acknowledge the public health system crisis.
He said there had been an increasing number of staffing emergencies at NSW hospitals..
"We've had ongoing reports of nurses and midwives working double shifts and increased amounts of overtime, gaps in staffing rosters going unfilled for weeks, vacant positions being left unfilled for months, as well as daily text messages begging staff to pick up extra shifts," he said.
"Our members are scathing of the government's unwillingness to continue an open dialogue with us about their claim for shift by shift nurse-to-patient ratios, improved maternity staffing and a modest pay rise."
The NSWNMA said it has had no offer from the government since meeting with the NSW Premier on February 21, following a mass walk out on February 15.
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
