Illawarra nurses will vote on whether to take more strike action on September 1, as they ramp up their push to improve staffing levels at hospitals across the region.
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Local members of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association (NSWNMA) will join colleagues across the state in an online vote on Tuesday, with the union reporting that many members plan to support the vote to put more pressure on the NSW Government.
In a campaign ahead of the NSW election next March, the nurses union wants the government to guarantee nurse to patient ratios for each ward on each shift, like in other states.
Understaffing in the Illawarra health system has been under scrutiny this year, with extended emergency department waiting times and ambulance bed block becoming routine.
Nurses are regularly asked to work extra shifts by their managers, due to a "significant staffing issues" which the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District says has gone on for months.
Earlier this month, Executive Director of Clinical Operations Margaret Martin said there had been around 100 staff members furloughed each day across the district due to illness in recent months, in addition to staff who are unavailable due to various forms of leave.
"Hospitals and emergency departments across the Local Health District (LHD) continue to manage the impacts of high community rates of COVID-19, this includes staff unable to attend work due to being unwell with COVID, a close contact or sick with the other seasonal ailments such as influenza," she said.
If the vote to strike is passed, it will be the third time nurses have taken widespread industrial action this year.
There were widespread strikes in February and March, and in June Illawarra and Shoalhaven staff joined a statewide walk out.
The strikes have ranged from a few hours to attend a mass union meeting, to a 24 hour walk out on March 31, when hundreds of nurses from across the region marched down Crown Street.
NSWNMA General Secretary Shaye Candish said overtime and working short was becoming normalised, which was leading to burnout and an increase in the number of nurses leaving the profession.
"This is not safe staffing and the growing evidence of burnout and fatigue among nurses and midwives is beyond alarming," she said.
"Our members are fed up with being ignored by the NSW government and they are desperate for change. They have been put through enormous moral injury and are done being overworked."
Nurses want a guarantee of one nurse to every four patients on most wards for each shift, with higher nurse numbers in emergency (one-to-three) and intensive care (one-to-one). They also want newborn babies to be counted towards patient numbers in maternity wards.
In the June budget, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet announced a $4.5 billion health funding boost with an extra 10,000 nurses, doctors and other health staff to be hired under a four-year plan.
Mr Perrottet said 7,674 more workers would be recruited in the first year, to help ease pressure on COVID-fatigued health staff and fast-track more elective surgery for patients.
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.
