Nurses from Shellharbour hospital say they are worried about safety issues with the overflow ward being used to house emergency department patients who can't get a bed elsewhere and will stage a rally to highlight their concerns.
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The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) members also said they were fed up after being severely understaffed overnight, so have decided to gather outside the hospital in their own time at the end of the night shift at 7am on Wednesday.
Illawarra Shoalhaven organiser Carolina Leiva said her members had raised their concerns with the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, but were "fed up" and worried patient safety would be compromised.
Ms Leiva said the "offload ward" was set up to provide beds for ED patients when the rest of the hospital was full.
"They have opened up this area, an annex in an old ward, and they are asking the medical and surgical ward to also staff that," she said.
"Nurses are concerned it's not not meeting work health safety requirements, and that the environment is not fit for purpose at the moment."
Ms Leiva said she could not elaborate on these concerns, but that nurses would highlight the issue at their 7am rally.
She also said nurses were concerned about "significant" staffing shortfalls in the ED due to vacancies for registered nurses at the hospital, combined with an increase in the number and severity of patients turning up.
To help fix this, the health district told nurses it plans to rely on Assistants in Nursing (AINs) - who hold a different qualification - to fill current registered nurse roles, the union said, with their role to include overseeing the ED waiting room during night shift.
She said the hospital had a 24-hour triage nurse, but the paediatric nurse, waiting room nurse and a nurse practitioner who works in a fast-track area of the ED were only staffed for eight hours.
"At night time they lose these roles, so the shortfalls are felt more overnight," she said.
"To combat this management have decided they will put Assistants in Nursing in to help the nurses, but that does not help the problem because AINs can only practice under the supervision of a registered nurse and have clinical limitations to what they can do.
"If they are in the waiting room they will be practicing above and beyond their scope. That means the triage nurse will not only have to triage all the presentations coming in, but look after the waiting room and any of the patients left in the fast-tracked area.
"Having an AIN [in the waiting room] only increases the workload."
NSWNMA members have been calling for the next NSW Government to put in place staffing ratios which make it mandatory to have at least one nurse to every three treatment spaces in the ED.
An ISLHD spokesperson said the district continued to engage in discussions with the NSWNMA about staff concerns, and that the extra beds were needed to help with timely ambulance offloading.
"Hospitals across the District, including Shellharbour, have been experiencing high demand for emergency care and hospital admissions in recent times," the spokesperson said.
They said the district was continuing to roll out a recruitment campaign to attract additional staff from throughout NSW, Australia and other parts of the world to all areas of the region.
"Like all ISLHD facilities, Shellharbour Hospital has workforce surge and demand management plans in place to ensure that safe standards for patient care and adequate staffing are maintained."
"Part of existing escalation plans at Shellharbour Hospital allow for additional beds to be made available during periods of higher demand to support timely ambulance offload."
"We wholeheartedly acknowledge and thank our dedicated staff for their continued hard work and commitment to keeping our community safe, and respect their right to raise issues and opinions with their respective unions," they said.
Previously, when asked about staffing, NSW Health has highlighted the government's commitment to fund 10,148 full-time equivalent staff to hospitals and health services over four years.
With the election next month, NSW Labor has agreed to introduce minimum and enforceable safe staffing levels to public hospitals, starting with emergency departments.
The Greens have said they will work with whichever major party hold power to meet the nurses union ratio demands.
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.
