My son and I returned last night after a journey of 15 hours in Emergency.

My son is 21 years old, severely physically disabled, and requires 24-hour care. He communicates nonverbally and is an amazing young man who has led an inclusive life.

I feel the need to highlight the experience of waiting for treatment in a Public Hospital. Even with a ‘sense of humour ‘the wait for medical treatment can be ‘challenging and exhausting. Accessing Emergency treatment is not always an easy journey.

I wish to emphasise that during this experience every staff member treated us with kindness and respect. The majority were nurses, all of whom were clearly capable, committed and working tirelessly in a pressured environment.

On Thursday evening, at 10.30PM, my son began vomiting (at home) with what appeared to be blood. There were also concerns regarding the tube for his peg feeding which appeared to look more prominent than normal. We tested him for covid which was negative and set off for the hospital in our wheelchair van. We realised it was going to be a long night but ensuring he was ok was imperative. Naively we hoped the late hour of the evening would be advantageous in receiving treatment in Emergency.

By 11pm we had arrived at the hospital emergency, there were approximately 25 groups of people awaiting treatment.  We were quickly triaged by a nurse and returned to the waiting room.

At 2am I asked the triage nurse what the possible wait time was to be seen. I was told anything from 2hr to 5 hrs. In truth it crossed my mind whether we would be better off going elsewhere. Knowing my son’s treating specialists were based at this hospital, I decided to continue our wait.

Could , my son, my friend and I cope another 5 hours?  Fingers crossed the wait would not be too much longer I said to myself.

Around 3am we were called to X- Ray to check the position of his peg tube. At this point we still had not seen a doctor. Again, the staff exhibited outstanding care, communicated with my son, and made the process seamless.

After the X-ray we returned to the emergency waiting room. Anxiously we hoped to see a doctor and hear what the X- ray showed.

By 5am we still had no idea whether the tube was in place or not. Al would soon need medications and flushes of water. We had now reached 6 hrs.

I spoke to the reception staff to ask where we might buy a tea or coffee. One of these kind women made a cup of tea for us both.

Perhaps it was the caffeine in the wee hours of the morning, but several entertaining ‘moments occurred’ in the following time as we desperately hoped his name would be called. Each time the electric doors opened a doctor in green scrubs would appear and call out a name. Would we hold a winning ticket for treatment?

Here is a little of the in-house entertainment.

1.The NIDA academy performance Medal – This goes to the young man who crawled in the doors with gastro at 4am, armed with an empty bowl, he lay on the floor with loud exaggerated vomiting noises, which disturbed the quiet ambience of the room. Meanwhile his young partner dutifully attended to him. He lay prostrate on the floor hoping the performance I assumed would get him seen quickly.  Keeping up the performance waned somewhat after an hour or so.

When finally called, he quietly stood and walked without effort. Everyone waits their turn!

2. The man who waited 12 hours:

This gentleman approached the tirage nurse and said he had been there 12 hours and his wife had not yet been seen. The tirage nurse explained there were ambulance patients coming in needing resuscitation and he could not be put ahead of them. I turned to my friend and thought how could he be there so long? It did not make sense.

I had no idea we would be there over 12 hours ourselves.

3. Colourful Inmates. The colour and interest when three young prisoners with their corrective services guards arrived to wait amongst us in the waiting room. Each dressed in their bottle green prison gear, complete with hand and foot cuffs. My son’s eyes were out on stalks as he watched them settle in comfortably. One young man, sporting two black eyes was cheerful and enjoying the outing.

Another kindly wished my son “All the best mate, take care” as they lay side by side in the x ray department. We were almost in another universe, each of us in line for help and treatment.

4. The Patient Experience Coordinator Counter

This counter sits empty at the front of the waiting room as if part of a set from a movie.

We wait patiently in seats facing the treatment area, always hopeful our name will be next.   The words “Patient Experience Coordinator, in big black letters calls out to you.

Why would they have this desk, when we are all having such a long and tough experience?

After 6 hours of waiting, I walked to empty counter and stood behind it as if I was the ‘Patient Experience Coordinator. The irony of the long wait, with this empty desk seemed so amusing to me in those wee hours of dawn. No one manned the desk, were there any ‘good’ patient experiences to discuss. Later that morning I noticed there was a Patient Experience coordinator, she appeared during the day and sat at the back of the room at a tiny table. She told me she never used that desk at the front, it wasn’t safe to sit at as she couldn’t get away from the desk (Too many complaints I surmised)

As I stood behind the desk in jest, No one noticed me, we were all too exhausted to care.

Meanwhile a stream of potential patients continued to arrive in the waiting room. We could also see through the glassed windows of the treatment area, the flurry of staff including the doctors, as they worked hard managing the flow of patients arriving from ambulances.

Around 6AM we were finally called up, seen by a doctor and a treatment plan explained including another X-ray for his chest to check for aspiration. We went to X-ray and then returned to the waiting room.

By 10.30AM three hours after my son’s morning medications were due, I asked the tirage nurse for some clarity on his situation. By 11.30AM I asked again as we still had no knowledge of whether the peg was safe to use or if he had aspirated. He had more medications due at 12:30PM and had still had no water or flush for 15 hours.

By 12.15PM we met the Gastroenterologist registrar who confirmed they were waiting on another X- ray procedure to ensure the peg was functioning correctly and that we could proceed with the 7.30AM medications.

By 1PM we were back in radiology for the procedure which was another example of caring and professional staff.

Around 2PM we were back in the Emergency room awaiting results and happily a discharge report that gave the green light to return home.

As we were handed the discharge summary from the tirage nurse, she apologised for the long wait for treatment.’

“We are so sorry”’ she said, “You shouldn’t have had to wait so long”.

We waited while the reception desk ordered a ‘Maxi Cab’ to take us the 20kms home. My son’s power wheelchair will not fit in a standard disabled cab.

Half an hour after the booking was made as we sat outside Emergency the Maxi Cab company rang to say they had no Maxi cab available to come sorry!

Travelling with someone in a wheelchair is never straight forward.

My friend then drove her own car back to our home in the Friday afternoon peak traffic, returning with our own wheelchair accessible van. Round trip for her took 2 hours. We were discharged from Emergency at 3:00PM, and finally left the hospital at 5.30PM.

Two significant mistakes in the Hospital discharge plan:

1. My son does not have epilepsy as it states
2. He does not have a Mickey Peg, as it states (he has a dual gastric and jejunal peg)

We were there for a peg issue so this is concerning the discharge plan is incorrect.

We arrived home around 6.30PM.

Our total Emergency Experience had become 20hrs.

Hopefully we can work towards improving Emergency wait times for all.

I’m fed up with turning up to shift to be short staffed yet again. Why is this the new norm? Why is it that the government would rather push us to breaking point, accepting national strikes instead of actively participating in the health care systems needs, the collaborative way, we as nurses are expected to encompass when it’s not being reflected by our higher governance!!!

I’ve been working in a COVID unit for at least 3 months. At the peak of the Omicron wave, tensions were high between worried staff, worried family, and and worried patients.

With the most skeleton of staff, we struggled in PPE with many of my colleagues experiencing electrolyte imbalances, headaches, nausea; brought upon by excessive sweating and limited water or toilet breaks. I remember feeling so dehydrated that I vomitted three times in one hour all the water I had desperately drunk in my short water break. I pulled through and just managed to nurse myself at home just because I knew we couldn’t be one more nurse short. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my already worried family about my day as they were already anxious about me bringing home COVID and anxious that I was working in unsafe conditions.

Patients would endlessly demand updates as if COVID could be cured with a snap of fingers. Families would take up all our phone lines and abuse us the minute they connected to someone. I couldn’t get in touch with hospital staff as my lines were all congested with incoming calls. When we could speak with family, it felt like whatever we said, whatever we did, whatever care we said we were providing; it was never good enough since we didn’t have some magical COVID cure. We were abused on end, and we were made to feel worthless all because of anxieties and hate people had for a system that couldn’t keep up with it’s people’s needs.

I have been sexually assaulted by COVID-delirium patients and I am still finding my way to come to terms with it. I have been grabbed, scratched, physically assaulted, spat at and urinated on by mentally sane patients because they were frustrated that nurses could not give them the level of care they wanted since we had no resources.

I acknowledge that I have become desensitised. I can reflect that I see society and people in darker light because of all the abuse I’ve taken. I see myself as less of a person because I have felt like I am never doing enough; despite knowing and seeing my colleagues and I do more that what could be expected of a nurse based off our Standards and the will of human beings. I’ve seen my friends, my colleagues, lose joy in the things we used to enjoy because we just want some time to rest, undisturbed. We are different, shaped through battering (physically and mentally) and we are not going to sit tight and take any more.

I work as a Manager at a Residential Aged Care Facility of 56 residents. I am new to the position and have worked tirelessly at advancing my career over 11 long years. I was so excited to reach this position, with all my hard work and dedication to people that I care for being finally recognised.

But now I just feel shattered; broken into pieces following a COVID outbreak within my facility. I have had to take time off as my mental health had severely deteriorated and stress levels were over the top. All I did was think about work, blocking out family and developing unhealthy habits such as drinking too much and smoking like a chimney, just to get by.

COVID entered our facility in very early January. A resident had gone out for Christmas lunch with family from Sydney and she carried that bug into our facility. We were quick to recognise the symptoms of her illness and she was quickly isolated. The resident suffered, not being able to see her family had repercussions on her mental health, and we seen a lady that was in the early stages of Dementia and able to self care, become very fragile, her memory slipping. When I seen her after recovery, all she could do was sigh sadly. She became angry and forever changed.

Then shortly after her isolation, one of our beautiful elderly gents had a fall. As he was on blood thinners and had a head injury, he was sent to hospital for further assessment. He came home with a few stitches and COVID. Before COVID his dementia ebbed and flowed, however he was going well with strategies in place. On day 3 of his COVID illness he began to wander from his room. We could not stop him and were directing him back to his room at every opportunity. We started to see our staff coming down with COVID although they were highly trained in the use of PPE. With the staffing levels dropped, the resident would be frequently found out in the dining area and at one stage walked out into a common area that I had to quickly evacuate other resident away from and shut all available doors. We just could not stop him, and so our cases spread.

All residents were put on room lockdown following the next case to emerge.

I think the third case for me was the saddest and I feel guilt in her death.  I watched her struggle to breath as her COPD flared and COVID took its toll. I toileted her and cleaned her. I offered her food and ensured she was aware that she was seriously unwell. The Doctors at the hospital would not accept her and kept asking “so what is her ceiling of care”; she was NFR so they would not take her. However, she was also adamant that she did not want to go to hospital, but I ask myself – did she know she was going to die? Could have I pushed her a little harder to go to hospital? Could have I just done something. I was called in at 2230hrs to verify her death as there were no available RNs on duty – I had just thought she may make it….I was devastated.

I think this is the biggest fear for when COVID strikes a Residential Aged Care Facility – how many will die? And now I have also learnt – how many will deteriorate and never be the same again.

I had staff yelling at me, telling me they would not work under these circumstances. At times there was only the RN in charge and one care worker available for 56. What could I do to rectify this problem – nothing – all other staff members either had COVID or were exhausted from double shifts. So I worked back. I worked many double shifts and literally felt like I was going to die. I sobbed on the phone to a roster clerk – “I just cannot do this anymore – I am an unsafe worker” and all she could say was that she was very sorry – there is nothing she could do. And there was nothing that could be done, but to work another shift, in a daze, body aching and limping around the facility as my hip had finally called its last hooragh. Eyes leaking with tears. No breaks. Dehydrated and hungry.

I just do not know if I can do this all again. COVID will get back in to the facility – there is nothing that can be done about this as the symptoms come after the spread is already happening. I just cannot feel the guilt of letting people down in their care, missing wound care, having to tell people to wait for care, being late with pain relief and watching people you have grown to care for – die.

There is something very, very wrong with our Aged Care System, and it is coming to a head now. Something has to be done. We cannot keep up with the demand to have a high level of care with all the documentation for our Residents when there is literally no one to care for them in the workplace.

Something will give, and it will be the workers. There will be losses of long term workers: workers with years of knowledge and skills- RN’s, EN’s, Managers and Care Staff – because it is just too much. Then what?

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was a highly experienced and capable, mental health community based, frontline nurse, seeing the most vulnerable of patients, postnatal women and their infants. When COVID19 hit, the distress, the isolation and the risks, for these women and their infants, increased tenfold. Intimate partner violence (IPV) increased in these families too, along with the scope of practice and the burden of care for us nurses. I was so traumatised by the intensity of the clinical  nursing care, that I became physically unwell with a stress related illness. There was no understanding (from management) of the toll this work was having on me (and all nurses!), nor acknowledgement of  vicarious trauma. My GP supported me and my requests to work less (as did the NSWNMA) but the LHD wouldn’t accept this, sending me through the impersonal HR process and insisting I got an “independent health assessment”. I realise now I could have made a WorkCover claim but I just wanted out so I resigned. Now I work part-time supporting others to do this important work. I feel angry and disillusioned that LHDs and Mental Health Services across this state claim to provide trauma-informed care to patients and consumers but cannot use the same trauma lens to care for their nurses. So much State and Federal funding has gone to projects and NGOs during the pandemic, when help is needed on the frontline. Mindfulness courses for us just don’t cut it!

Thanks for letting us speak

I work in public  hospital.  our ward can look after more than 40 patient. we always been provided 6-7 stafffor pm shift and 4-5  night  shift and 8 every morning and they can be less depend on who called sick or been canceled by the Adon most of the time  not replaced . We could receive 4 to 8 patients confused plus palliatives patient the critical patient on telemetry plus postop patients. Nurses been running in this dangerous situation to look after these patients not having breaks or even feeling too worried to leave the area they work at to go to toilet. we witnessed patients fall with hitting head or wonder outside the ward without nurses knowing due to heavy loads , COVID made it worse and nurses leaving their position because of refusing mandated vaccination effected us badly. We love our job we worked hard to obtain higher education not to see our patients that we looked after for years getting hurts or die due to lack of staff or bad ratio. As nurse we all scared all the time for not able to comply with code of conduct or ethics. We feel our Proffesional career was effected. Since we been threatened to take the vaccination or lose our work things is not the same I witnessed managers making meetings pushing staff to stay. The new graduate nurse being  used to stay overtime to cover shift. All the things managers say to us this is what has been provided to us nothing else. I know no one will release this but this is our huge concerns and because we have been in a lot of pressure for the past 3 years and nothing happened to protect us I decided to release this  thanks for listening

I’m a ICU registered nurse at a tertiary referral hospital, and my unit has been made the pandemic pod for covid. During the delta outbreak last year, right as it was getting to the worst part, I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant. I was already struggling with work, due to witnessing patients pass away without family close by, and this news shook me even more. I struggled to accept it, and was at work distracted and pre occupied. On top of this, I was so sick, I couldn’t keep food or water down at all, so I wasn’t eating, and the n95 masks and gowns were triggering my gag reflex and making me sick.

Despite all this, due to staffing shortages, and the severity of patients, I was forced to stay in the covid unit, until I finally said enough was enough. I was in patients rooms swallowing back vomit, because I couldn’t take my mask off in the room. It wasn’t fair on me and it wasn’t fair on my patients. And then, due to this anxiety and stress it was causing me, I miscarriaged. And did not receive any follow up or support at all.

5 months later, I’m still struggling with PTSD wearing covid ppe, from that experience, and I go to work racked with anxiety, and can’t sleep on night shifts.

I was a new graduate nurse thinking of quitting nursing already. On my first day on a busy mixed surgical ward, I had to work with junior ENs with no support as the educator had to work on the floor with her patient load and so many juniors on the shift. I am thinking of quitting nursing and moving on.

I have been an RN for 13 years and these past two have been emotionally and physically exhausting. And as nurses we push ourselves to keep going and be strong however it has recently become so untenable that I had a massive panic attack at the beginning of my shift.
The constant abuse from family about the inability to see their family, the executive decisions on who can and can’t enter COVID wards to see dying patients. Abuse from patients because they can’t go for walks, have a cigarette, don’t like the food, the list goes on… and then the PPE that has us sweating to the point of almost fainting and inability to get enough water intake on shift because your too busy to stop caring for your incredibly unwell patients.. these all amounted to a full on breakdown in front of my colleagues.

I don’t know one nurse right now that isn’t feeling overwhelmed and exhausted on our covid ward.

We feel unheard and absolutely disrespected by the governments lack of regard for us. We don’t want chocolates or pens, we want action to improve our conditions at work!

We want what we are entitled to..

The carnage from years of mismanagement of the health system is imploding it.
As a manager l have seen my team wax and wane over several years. Prior to the pandemic we were a busy medical ward with anything and everything admitted to it. I would insist on appropriate staffing from a robust risk assessment point of view with patients who were extremely unwell. This caused the acuity to breach the NHPPD that is never utilised as it is designed due to another department having control over the staff we were “allowed” to put on to cover the deficit.

The inability to provide flexible rostering to staff to ensure a work life balance is also deemed inappropriate and against the rotating roster policy which not only leads to staff disengagement but sees staff having to request Temporary rostering agreements and provide evidence as to why they can’t work as required. This is one of many  outdated policies that is impacting a degenerative nursing workforce.

The nurses prior to covid were picking up regular overtime shifts out of compassion to the patients and colleagues.  As manager, I would prefer we had a workforce that was robust enough to cover our own deficits. As managers we weren’t allowed to grow our own casual workforce. Leaving us to rely on the hospital’s capabilities to provide cover. A nurse who may not have the skills to take on the challenges of our ward. Of course we were grateful that we at least had someone to cover, oftentimes it was not “like for like” which again placed a burden on an already stressed nursing team.
As replacing an RN with an AIN meant an RN picking up a large patient load and placing more pressure on them to ensure safety to what sometimes could be 8 patients or more.
Another example is specialling within numbers.
Or a schedule patient not being provided a security guard despite the firm orders from the Mental Health team who had placed them under the schedule for the reason to keep not only the nurses safe but the patient themselves. Many times, I would put myself between the patient and my staff to prevent them being injured or to try and diffuse the situation. I have been physically assualted, had walking frames thrown at me, been screamed at, arms pinched endured repetitive psychological torment from patients who had no other ward to go. My staff have been also physically assaulted and psychologically worn down, this is with a minimum staffing profile.

When covid hit suddenly we had a magical pot that delivered extra staffing resources to our ward.
instead of 7:26 or 8:30 we had 10:26!
Despite the awful conditions we worked under of being in PPE constantly for an 8 or 10 hour shift causing us to become dehydrated, enduring injuries from masks and gowns, we at least had staffing, this however did taper off after the second wave and the third wave obliterated any semblance of staffing that remained with any semblance of NHPPD or Ratios of any type non existent.  This has seen the nursing workforce stripped to bare minimum. Causing a breakdown if the system on a phenomenal scale.

With no fore planning by the Government with it’s “Let it Rip” attitude.
If consultation with managers at the frontline had taken place especially after the first wave I am sure we would have told them that a secondary workforce should have been developed to relieve the exhausted front liners, which should take place after any critical incident as it does in other areas of workforce in this country such as Sydney Trains and NSW Police. Employees are not forced back into situations where they have under gone significant trauma. Providing a fresh workforce ready and waiting to continue to fight the good fight against the virus and any further threats.

I am extremely proud of my team but so very disappointed in the Government for letting us down. The pay freeze a slap in the face of a workforce that will always put compassion before anything.

Except I think now there is a shift in our thinking this profession is tired. Tired of being trodden on and not provided the monetary recognition and assistance through patient ratio’s to retain this workforce.
I think we are all over being treated this way and with many leaving NSW health in droves and one cannot blame them. It will be up to those who are left to pick up the pieces and find some semblance of a workforce to carry on.
I support my staff striking and encourage it as collectively we can make a difference.

We agree each year to abide by our standards for practice.
this just seems to be getting harder and harder as more tasks just keep getting added to the list. The patients are suffering and we are mentally and physically exhausted. we can not provide safe care for our patients.
last year I was a new grad, our staffing levels were so bad some shifts we had 5 new grads on the floor with 1 senior nurse, on a ward with extremely sick patients requiring medical emergency teams. This putting extreme pressure and responsibility onto the senior nurse and creating anxiety and a feeling of no support for us new grads. The amount of times I went home crying or cried in the supplies room because I could not find support due to lack of staff, educators that then meant I was not providing the care my patient required and deserved that I agreed to in my registration.

I became a nurse to care for those who are sick and vulnerable, who need someone to advocate for them. However the government seem to not care.
is it because they all have private health and they get special treatment if they have to attend hospital due to illness?
I’m in my second year of being a registered nurse and I love my job but I am exhausted, we as a team are exhausted. We are trying our best but the government is against us.

I’m working in aged care. It’s more mental health but aging in place. Since the Royal Commission outcome, we are swamped with paper work than spending quality time with our clients. It hasn’t gotten any easier. The hand over time each shift is 6 minutes. We are always working extra time before and after the shifts but with no extra pay. Have to do RAT on colleagues which takes 15 minutes for results. Staff when sick are not replaced but workload is expected to be completed before leaving. For breaks Staff have no allocated area outdoors in fresh air. No water provided in work stations. People are sweaty and uncomfortable under the PPE.

I work as an AIN in a regional NSW Health facility. I receive almost daily requests for help due to short staffing. I go in to help whenever I can.

It is not unusual to arrive to find 2 RNs responsible for 18 patients. If they’re lucky, an AIN will be available to help.

How can this be happening in Australia, in 2022? The LNP, that’s how.

Let me start my story by saying the nurses who cared for me, my partner and son were caring, did it with a smile on their face and were well trained and professional. My story comes from one of understaffing.

As a soon to be first time mum, I was like a deer in the headlights. I spent a total of 8 days in hospital due to high blood pressure and my little boy becoming jaundice and not being very well after birth.

When I was first bought into the maternity ward, I was sent to the birthing suite to monitoring as my bp was high. I came into the room that wasn’t cleaned from the last patient. It had dirty tissues, food and eating utensils. I was asked to sit on the bed and wait. I didn’t because the sheets needed changing, which the midwife did once she realised. They then got me a room on the ward, and I was told I was going to be induced in the morning. The morning came and went and by 4.30 I was sent into the birth suite again to be induced. I was the sent to surgical ward with my bags to wade out early labor. The maternity ward was at capacity and there was no room for me at this time. This was okay, but nothing was explained to me as to what to expect. The induction was hard and fast. I was then sent back to birth suite during the night, as they thought it was go time- false alarm, so I went back to my room in surgical that morning. I labored during Wednesday waiting for my waters to be broken, but was told I wouldn’t be able to have that happen today as there weren’t any staff or beds in the birth suite. I was having steady contractions 2 minutes apart on and off since Tuesday- more than 24hsrs.

My waters were broken Thursday morning and things progressed quickly. I was in a lot of pain and had lots of pressure on my back. I labored with just gas until 4.30. Another midwife checked me and realised baby was posterior. His heart rate began to drop and OBgyns came in to check. He was stuck, so I ended up having emergency c section. Afterwards I was taken back to the birth suite that wasn’t in use and was a storage room. There was no space and to be honest it was traumatic to be back in the room. I didn’t get out of the birth suite until lunch time, and because no one knew I was in there my breakfast and lunch never came. The nurses were so busy this issue seemed trivial, although a new mum living on snake lollies wasn’t probablythe best after the marathon of birth.

I had an iv for antibiotics which was taken out too early, so I had to have oral tabs. My bp was still high so was on medication along with pain relief. My medication was often missed as staff were busy with sicker patients.

When my boy had to spend a second night in special care because of jaundice I was again moved to another room. I ended up just being there the night but it added to the uncertainty. The day I was discharged, nurses hadn’t had breaks all day. The special care nurse was busting to go to the toilet but there was no one to relive her. Being able to go to the toilet is a human right, not a luxury!

When I gave them a box of choccies to say thank you, some midwives had tears in their eyes as they were so grateful and hadn’t eaten anything all day. It was 3 in the afternoon.

The people who look after us at out worst and best days on our lives should be able to have a pee break and food break. Fatigue leaves room for error.

The chronic understaffing, unsustainable, unsafe workloads, extra admin duties, sick leave not being replaced, rosters not being filled, forcing existing staff to do more with less, has all been going on for many decades. On top of that, the government’s refusal to listen and worse, take action on nurses and midwives concerns over those many decades, is also not new. The government have thanked us and called us heros during a pandemic of global proportions and yet, they have continually refused to give us safe ratios, sustainable workloads, offer a wage rise in line with inflation, pay us a covid allowance, provide us with appropriate PPE, timely vaccination, access to testing equipment or compensation for contracting covid, or being required to continue to work until we drop, when the rest of the population is isolating due to being a close contact. The government calls us liars and scare mongers when we call them out on their lies, that the health system is not on it’s knees. As a direct consequence of decades of government inaction and incompetence, and not least due to the exhausting cycle of the last 2 years, nurses and midwives are fed up. They are leaving the profession at an alarming rate. The reason? Working for NSW health, has become death by a thousand cuts. That’s why. We are aware that we cannot continue to give our best and our safest care to the community when we are so exhausted, frustrated, angry, fearful, cynical, under resourced, underpaid and so overwhelmingly under valued. Nurses, midwives and the community deserve better. We all need better from the government. That is why NSW nurses and midwives are finally moving to strike. We’re passionate about our communities, passionate about doing the right thing, passionate about health and about keeping the community safe. It’s a rethoric the government has rammed down our necks for 2 years but has never actually been able to achieve and it’s not good enough!

I am so deeply sorry.

Understaffing sucks as there is so much mental pressure with working in covid wards and doing double shifts in a day, no breaks during shifts and heavy mental and physical workload and still no security of job and getting permanent residency eventually which is not gonna help healthcare industry and also the bonus of petty $800 is like a beggar begging his wages.

Recently I underwent a long overdue, potentially life-saving procedure. From the time I entered the hospital to the time I left, every person who cared for me, as well as the many other patients, truly cared. They all did their utmost, despite being overworked and constantly receiving more demands to try and meet under impossible conditions.

The nurses, assistants, doctors, receptionists, cleaners, barely had time to think, yet somehow managed their superhuman roles. I don’t know how much longer any of them will manage to work in their life-saving profession.

Over the last few years, as a patient and as a friend of several doctors, nurses and midwives, I’ve listened to and watched the entire health care system crumble through the lack of care and poor economics practised by  politicians who have no idea what they’re doing, don’t care, who are sociopaths, or all three.

People are becoming ill, traumatised, developing disabilities, dying because of these issues. In years to come, analysis of the statistics will show the true cost of the “cost-cutting measures” taken by successive governments; particularly this one.

I support nurses and midwives with every fibre of my being.

I am a registered nurse/ midwife working in public hospitals since 1979. I trained within the hospital system, after 6 week study block we were employed as student nurses paid to work at the level of our training. We were supervised by the registered nurses and educators. The system worked well and at the end of our training we were confident to work in most areas having 3 months experience in each hospital area including midwifery. I went on to become a midwife . The system has been failing nurses for a long time, under the current system with most nurses graduating with limited exposure to many areas of nursing. The system has no insensitive for people to do nursing. Practical sessions are 6 weeks at a time 3 times a year, often away from home, shift work, poorly staffed , high stress , unsafe and not paid for a 6 week period! Nurses are not encouraged to pursue diversity in nursing and most channeled into specialty areas which decreases ability for diversity and as it is most areas want staff with previous experience.  The acute staffing shortage has been worstening over the last 20 years and the situation just before the start of the pandemic was the worst I have ever experienced, with no ratios in place in midwifery, unqualified staff replacing midwives, increasing high work loads. Midwives both young and old are burning out! No one is listening! Student nurses in Wollongong University are not even given a rotation in midwifery? The system is failing our industry.

I’m a final year student RN and I work casually as an AIN at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.

We have been chronically understaffed since well before this pandemic. As a nursing assistant, I should be there to help RNs, supplement the team and provide extra assistance for high dependence patients. I should NOT be there in replacement of multiple RNs. As much as I feel overworked and overwhelmed, I mostly just feel bad for the RNs who are struggling to maintain the minimum of patient care, and who I am limited to help due to my limited scope of practice.

The pandemic has made me scared but the government’s response has made me furious. As much as I want to help supplement a hardworking yet dwindling workforce, I do not want to do so without the support or acknowledge from our leaders. I do not want to knowingly enter a career that is characterised by burning out workers.

I want to be a nurse because I care for people and want to support them during difficult times. I do not want to be a nurse decause I know in the current environment I would hate every second of it and lose my compassion for others in an instant.

At this stage, I am seriously considering either retraining in another field, deferring my graduation, or moving interstate where they do have nurse:patient ratios. Either way, I will not be applying for a job in a Sydney hospital at the end of this year.

Perottet, stop telling us we are coping. Experienced nurses are quitting and new nurses are dropping out. Action needs to be taken now before we have no nurses left.

I work as an AIN in a private aged care, my shift is in the afternoon and we are currently on lockdown due to some staff getting covid. Even before year 2021 we have staffing problems where the ratio of staff is 1 AIN is to 10 resident. At the moment we are still understaffed because there are staff who are isolated. But the management seem to not care. Sometimes they will be asking staff to work double. There are times when a staff is calling in sick but will be rejected and forced to go to work. The manager would always say that there is no one to cover their shift. Sometimes they will say just take panadol and come to work. Even water is not provided for staff. Like we are not allowed to get bottled water because they say that it is only meant for resident only. We are not even allowed to turn the aircons on because resident are complaining that it is cold. However, imagine staff wearing full PPE for 8 to 12 hours and the temperature goes up to 30 to 34.

Being an EEN in a rural and remote MPS we are all working above and beyond our limits and we are at breaking point.

Some of us leave work after doing an 8 Hr day or sometimes longer feeling extremely overwhelmed because we haven’t been able to give our patients the time and proper care that is needed.

We were under staffed before the pandemic but now the government says that we just need to cope. Well we are not coping. We go home exhausted and very emotional and expected to go back the next day and do it all again.

We miss out on family occasions just so that our patients have someone with them.  It is hard enough for us to answer call bells as well as the telephone but what is very frightening is the amount of patients that need close monitoring for falls or observations that some of these patients do fall or don’t get turned through out the night or god forbid be left in their incontinence pad for longer than 6 hours, it’s just so simple to give us more staff.

Also if you ask any patient they will probably tell you the same story that the nurses are constantly walking very quickly pass all day long and deserve a lot more money for the job that they do, even more so now during this pandemic as we nurses and midwives are constantly thinking am I going to come into contact with Covid-19 or am I going to take it home to our loved ones.

I just wished that we nurses could trade places with our government for at least 2 weeks and see how they go doing what we do, on the amount of money that we get. I bet they wouldn’t even last a day

2 nurses to 12 patient ratio on a busy acute surgical ward.

Staff quitting and not being replaced.

Constant demand for overtime.

Unattainable goals.

Our hospital system waiting list needs a big shake up . When you have cancer patients put paper work in for thirty day admission and 90 days not in hospital not on list yet when you ring them. Hazzard office new all about this because I contacted him.Needles to say procedure was not followed and my husband came out of hospital in a body bag. They couldn’t even get the paperwork right to release the body. It is in the hands for the health commission and hazzards office.

My mum has been in and out of Tweed Valley Mental Health clinic for years now. They have been short staffed and overwhelmed by a large case load. The unit is for around 20 to 30 inpatients, yet yearly they see over 1000 people. Seriously they need to be better resourced to provide a world class service. Please Mr Premier do something to address these short falls so patients and their families can receive the treatment and care they require to live independently in the community in their homes.

The politicians have shown absolute contempt for our profession and expertise.
They have not listened to our reasonable requests
for safe patient ratios exposing patients to sub standard care and potential neglect & Nurses feeling unsafe in their ability to fulfill their duty of care.
The scenario is untenable as is proven by nurses
leaving the profession or suffering themselves
with mental health or physical issues.
Skill mix is also compromised with inadequate ratios .
I especially feel for the Aged Care Sector as even the most fancy facilities do not remunerate their staff adequately. Multi million dollar providers exploit
gentle , caring , hard working persons to provide
care with 1x RN to manage multiple complex scenarios.
These providers can pay over the award .
I feel gas lighted by the premier & prime minister
they pay us lip service and are self serving .
I would like to see more exposure in a Q&A style on TV &/or radio with these supposed experts and our nurses .
Our remuneration is another bone of contention,
$1 odd an hour extra pre tax .
How insulting & disrespectful .

Hello. I am working as an Enrolled nurse in regional NSW. Its very hard time. We are working with short staff. Even some days we are doing two shifts in a single day. Its totally mental stress.. In this hard time, the department not giving permanent residency to us. Atleast give permanent residency to us. So we can secure our future in Australia. Thanks

To be told that the system is  coping is an insult. It is coping because Nurses give and give until they break.

Annual leave hasn’t been given in our ICU for over a year. We have been allocated a single week each, at a time not of our choosing, which is surprised on us sometimes the week before the leave.

At the time of writing this, not all staff have had their allocated week of leave.

We are tired.

We are burnt out.

A year, in pandemic conditions, without a mental break and down-time, is unsafe, unfair, and unkind.

We definitely need enrolled nurses in regional aged cares in NSW as we are not capable of coping two shifts 17-18 hrs in 24 hours it’s not safe for us and the residents in the aged care and pay rate should be raised by 20% and also regional enrolled nurses should be offered permanent residency to lure them work there especially in NSW REGIONAL AND RURAL AREAS

I challenge anyone including fellow clinicians, ferry drivers, garbage collectors or computer engineers to imagine a day in the life of a Midwife on a postnatal ward;

– you have been allocated a above average workload , and you are given double the workload that your supervisor told you that you have. You complain about your double workload, and you are told that it’s not double because half of the workload you have been allocated needs to be fully completed, but it won’t be counted as your workload.

This is what Postnatal midwives experience every day! This is a breach of WHS act 2011 and Fair Work act 2009 regarding an unreasonable workload when 6-7 of our infant patients are not counted but consume an increasing amount of time. Factors to consider;

– infants are increasingly sent to a postnatal ward instead of neonatal nursery as low as 2.2 kg or 28 weeks or receiving phototherapy , constant observations, 3/24 feeds by syringe & baby’s NAS observations withdrawing from drugs or hlarge haematomas requiring increased observations all included in each midwives workload, but not counted. This is not new. This has been buried for decades . What other specialty or profession would actually choose to accept twice the work but only count half of your workload & just not acknowledge that this is lawful, albeit unreasonable. This would not be allowed in a male dominated profession & it should be regarded as unlawful that our tireless midwives want a fair workload to reflect the workload of the neonate , in addition to the maternal patient. Being flogged with a 14 patient workload for $46 per hour is unconscionable.

We are currently so under staffed that we are using staff fro wards to run our theatres so we can make $$$

It’s just the public system which is struggling but also the private sector

A typical week. Double shift on Monday, double shift on Tuesday, Night shift on Wednesday, Sleep on Thursday, Friday off, extra shift on Saturday , Sunday off. All to help out my fellow nurses and patients then Severe pain and vomiting early hours Monday morning, trip to hospital in ambulance then emergency gallbladder out Tuesday. It just goes to show that we are under extreme pressure and stress causing I’ll health to ourselves all to help those around us we deserve our pay rise and our nurse patient ratios we have requested or you will burn us all out and you will have no one.

For a long time now nurses have been working their arses off simply for the thank you but words can only take us so far.  When the cost of living has increased without our wages increasing in kind, at the same time patient acuity is increasing with decreasing numbers of staff to safely care for these sicker patients, it gets harder and harder to just cop the odd thank you on the chin.  Nurses need real support and real appreciation for what we do each and everyday if we want to continue to have a healthcare system that can not only save lives but compassionately provide patients with the support they need.  For the first time in over 20 years of nursing I feel that the care has left the industry- be that through sheer exhaustion, lack of communication and lack of support – for the first time I am strongly considering leaving nursing and healthcare as I am spent and do not receive enough back to continually give to my chosen profession.  I would rather walk away than provide patients with substandard care in their time of need.

Staffing is at such critical levels in my hospital that it is just guaranteed that we will be understaffed. Up to 6-8 patients during a day shift. Patient outcomes are so poor that I feel physically sick when coming to work, thinking that I may be killing my patients through negligence due to poor staffing – and poor time management as a result. Anxiety is high. Quitting is seeming more realistic every day.

In the aged care where I am working as an EEN we are doing double shifts. The person who is doing morning does afternoon with it and person doing afternoon does night with it. It’s very tiring and frustrating and also not fair for the residents in aged care it’s can be sorted only if the permanent residency is given to nurses in regional at least so that they can come to work in regional nsw and help us coping this pandemic May the lucrative to get PR helps the aged care in regional areas to deal with this crisis situation.

I have been and always will be a proud supporter of our public health system.  But twelve months ago I had four admissions totalling over four months in my nearest public hospital and two of these admissions were the worst I had ever experienced due to the disastrous staffing ratios and lack of nurses to look after me.

There were numerous days when there was no-one to shower me and many other times when I had to sit in a wet bed until late in the day.

Medications weren’t given on time and infusions not changed when needed. Other patients were not being treated properly either with one lady only getting her neck brace changed once/day if she kept asking, instead of the four times she was supposed to get.

There was no physio available to help me and I ended up basically immobilised when I left hospital.

Nurses were run off their feet often having to look after a large ward, admit new patients and prepare others for surgery or transport.

I could go on about this problem as there were lots of dangerous things happening due to insufficient staff to look after patients properly but it all comes down to money and priorities.

The nurses who still turn up for work can’t continue to do so much longer as many have reached the end of their endurance.

If these problems aren’t addressed in a meaningful way, people are going to die because there aren’t enough nurses to look after everyone.

Midwife here: Regular double shifts (18hrs), babies don’t count so on a night shift could look after up to 6-8 women AND their babies… could be 1:12 ratio. No time for breaks. Stress amongst colleagues. Severely burnt out.

Inspite of being short staff, I am trying to apply for more than 50 places even in regional areas, for the post of Registration Nurse, and my applications are getting rejected from everywhere, I am on student visa and am a Registered Nurse in Australia, currently studying my Master of Nursing, I am available full time, but no one bothers to have a look in our end and our struggle, we have to pay our loans, university fees, rent, medical bills and many more, and I am available for full time work, no one is helping me out to fine a proper job, is there anyone who can help me to get better job in NSW PLEASE Help Me.

12 months ago I left the public system where I worked in Ed for 5 years. Staffing was inadequate and with Covid thrown in the mix I was exhausted and anxious. I gained employment in the Private sector where I have been able to rediscover my love for nursing. Fast forward to 2022 and our colleagues in a remote town 6 hours away were desperate for help. They have experienced inadequate staffing, unskilled staffing and fear for their personal safety and professional registration. I put my hand up to go and help for 1 month, I lasted 11 days. Intruders breaking into staff accomodation at the hospital, stealing belongings and threatening people with knives! Poor security, gates were rammed by a stolen car recently and had not been replaced. No midwife available for the indigenous ladies presenting in labour, requiring retrieval. I am not a midwife. No health service manager to express my concerns too. They have had 8 in the last 12 months. One of 2 Doctors in town has just had their car stolen. So why would staff go there? They need help NOW!!

We’re short staff every single day to the point RNs need to take 10 pts each time especially at night shift or an RN and AIN working together with 10 pts. It’s unfair as the workload and the acuity in the ward gets heavy most of the time with sick patients. We always have overtime posting everyday to fill in the gaps but no one wants to do it as everyone is burnt out to the point they’re leaving the work place.

• Why is it that the mining sector has a fatigue management plan for their workers, yet nurses don’t have one!? Or we do but

it’s ok to override??

If and/or when (god forbid) a mistake is made, and the outcome is serious harm to a patient or even death – who will be to blame??

When a nurse is so burnt out to the point of mental breakdown, who then helps their loved ones come to terms with why this has happened??

Where is your compassion for nurses who’s job it is to do no harm to our patients, to be the emotional and physical support for patients and their families and also to be able to emotionally and physically support themselves and their own families???

Due to staff shortages since you have carelessly opened up the state to ‘let it rip’ I have watched ED staff work their 16th 12hr shift in a row with no break, I have watched nurses work well over 80 hours a WEEK! They have had their annual leave cut short due to staff shortages, Loose precious time with their kids during the school holidays, only to then put THEM at risk of getting COVID due to the sheer amount of people attending ED because they ‘tested positive’, or then there is the fact that people are trying to attend the hospital to visit patients who them selves have tested positive, which in turn sending half of a ward and it’s staff into lockdown – or precious babies in intensive care and their families! What the actual f……!!??

Would you yourself, NSW Premier, work under these conditions??

How would you feel if your wife or child was working under these condition???

We have had enough!

Nurses are leaving the profession they once loved and worked so hard to get!!

You need to listen to the stories, you need to understand how bad it is for nurses.

You need to make it BETTER for nurses!!

Nurses struggled with staffing and workload well before the pandemic began its not a new situation, but Im not sure how long we can “make it work” now that covid had crippled the system. People are sicker, health issues complex, families restricted, patients isolated, safety standards falling, staff exhausted and over it. Many good nurses overworked, burnt out and leaving the profession they once loved. Many new nurses thrown under the bus trying to remember the reason why they choose this job. It’s bloody hard work, and it needs to be acknowledged in more than just accolades.  Remuneration needs to be adequate; give us incentive to stay. Staffing needs to be appropriate; give us ratios so we have the time to give our patients the care they deserve.

Today was an all time low in our unit.  Every staff member was edgy the stress was palpable.  Another staff member not coming to work due to Covid and nobody to replace her. Time to reallocate to share the additional patient load,  yet again.  I absolutely love my job and work extra hours every second day in order to try to complete everything that needs to be done. I have zero faith or trust in our current management now that things have reached a point they are clearly not interested in actually rectifying unsustainable workload issues.  They know they can rely on our compassion and empathy for the patients and for our overworked colleagues to continue to stretch our hours well into the realm of unpaid overtime.

Regularly my family is frustrated that yet again I’m not coming home for a long while past the anticipated time or that yet again,  I spend less and less time at home during my sons waking hours.

I come home traumatised, cranky or crying at least once a week.

There is currently minimal job satisfaction when you go home every day worried more about the long list of things you didn’t get done and how many patients felt abandoned by me… again.

In turn, we feel abandoned and ignored by every level of management.  No we’re not coping and yes we know you’re not interested in hearing that 😔

Not only are our patients presenting with more pre existing comorbidities, are more acutely unwell and more are presenting to our hospitals and our wards. We deal with the constant reminders that we are fully staffed and gaslighted with promises of brighter days.

Yet here we are.

We are pushed to discharge patients to clear our overflowing emergency departments.

Pushed to discharge enough patients for the days elective surgery lists.

Pushed to move our passed patients to the morgue to bring in the next.

Pushed to attend more education, told its mandatory but expected to squeeze it into our busy shifts or worse in our own personal time.

Pushed to attend followup phones calls yet we struggle to give patients personal cares.

And if that’s not bad enough.

We are harassed daily with calls, messages and requests for extra or overtime shifts.  Our rostered days off are no longer ours to enjoy, as our personal phones are bombarded with messages of deficits and pleas to assist.

We are called in early, asked to stay late. Cornered in the hallways to swap our shifts only to see a message that they now need to cover the shift you swapped.

Our kids are going to bed without us, we are missing their lives. Our days off are playing catchup on housework that was left behind as we ran out the door a few hours earlier than rostered or was not done as we slept after we didn’t return home until the morning after our afternoon shift turned into an eighteen hour overnighter.

We squeeze in a catch up here or there. Our social lives no longer fit within our work lives. The balance between life and work has tipped to the latter. Our families miss us.

We lose ourselves as we give more and more of our time.

Our bank accounts don’t show how hard we work as after so much overtime the government reaches in and takes it back in taxes. All we have to show for our efforts are bags under our eyes, the aches of walking halls for days on end, the hunched shoulders from the weights of unfinished tasks, and the reminders of all the time we have lost.

And yet we are told we are coping.

We are told we are fully staffed and not working short.

We are treated as though we are replaceable as no incentives are provided to keep staff.

We shoulder the mental load of an underfunded, out of touch, broken system.

I have been on my ward for 11 years and in my hospital for 13 as an EEN.

I have watched my fellow nurses become shells of their former selves due to the pressure of meeting patients needs when there is no staff. AINs are replacing RNs and EENs on shift deficits putting more pressure on the team leaders, RNs and EENs. They are then needing to pick up the slack of inexperienced staff and taking on more responsibility.

Experienced EENs are expected to take on the role of the RN without the pay or recognition just because they have more experience than other RNs on shift (when there is any).
We need more.

The politicians have shown absolute contempt for our profession and expertise.
They have not listened to our reasonable requests
for safe patient ratios exposing patients to sub standard care and potential neglect & Nurses feeling unsafe in their ability to fulfill their duty of care.
The scenario is untenable as is proven by nurses
leaving the profession or suffering themselves
with mental health or physical issues.
Skill mix is also compromised with inadequate ratios .
I especially feel for the Aged Care Sector as even the most fancy facilities do not remunerate their staff adequately. Multi million dollar providers exploit
gentle , caring , hard working persons to provide
care with 1x RN to manage multiple complex scenarios.
These providers can pay over the award .
I feel gas lighted by the premier & prime minister
they pay us lip service and are self serving .
I would like to see more exposure in a Q&A style on TV &/or radio with these supposed experts and our nurses .
Our remuneration is another bone of contention,
$1 odd an hour extra pre tax .
How insulting & disrespectful .

Hi! I just wanted to share my experiences and story. I address this to the NSW Government.

I was a NUM in a small rural ED that has always been under-resourced and understaffed, but we always managed to remain efficient, and often had better outcomes for our patients than the larger hospitals in our LHD. Our GM once said to me (with a media team in tow), that in terms of acuity and KPIs were only second to our largest tertiary hospital.
From the beginning of the pandemic, we had very little guidance from our senior managers, based in a larger regional hospital, gave us very little guidance on how to prepare for the expected disease trajectory. I had to work 2-4hrs overtime for about a three-week period to develop some basic processes and organise the ED to accommodate COVID patients. I did this because I didn’t want to put anyone in our team at risk. We helped each other and I welcomed suggestions from all staff. We received no extra resources or funding for COVID preparation, but our larger hospital did. We were not supported by our senior managers with non-clinical time to arrange all this. As a NUM, I was not supported by my line manager or senior management to take care of my usual management tasks, let alone trying to prepare for COVID. I ended up in a very unpleasant situation that meant I was on the floor every morning with a patient load on my shift, whilst also trying to complete management tasks and prepare for COVID. Management were aware I wasn’t coping, and it all came to a head when I was becoming, not only mentally, but physically unwell. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, and ended up on worker’s compensation because of this. I was not able to go back to my position as NUM at the completion of my worker’s compensation claim, because of senior managers refusing to allow me to apply for the casual pool or to successfully apply for other jobs within our LHD. I am now working in a medical practice which suits me well, but I still carry the emotional scars from manager intimidation, apathy and ignorance. I have found the senior management of these hospitals to be callous, intimidating and unapproachable. They continually take, and never give, except when they give staff more tasks to complete on top of their already unmanageable workloads. Nurses  deserve better. I have been away from the ED environment for over 12mths now so I simply cannot imagine what the stress levels are like now. My friends and colleagues are hurting. They are torn between caring for their patients, keeping their patients and their colleagues safe, fighting for better conditions, safe and appropriate staffing, adequate resources and decent wages.
I am most dissatisfied in the management team, who appear to have little sympathy and take no responsibility for the well-being of their staff.

We need action now and need this situation remedied before this already incredibly difficult situation becomes untenable and unable to be fixed. Please. Please try to think about what our jobs have become and how we are increasingly unable to care for our patients safely. Think of it like this: if one of those patients was your grandparent, parent, child or friend, would you want exhausted, compassion-fatigued, frightened and stressed staff taking care of them as best they could, without the tools, support or assistance required to look after them safely? I think not…

I have been a nurse for 30+ years and our public health system has never been worse. We front up shift after shift to provide the best care we can and keep our patients as safe as we can with woefully inadequate resources. We work in a blaming culture where clinical incidents are seen in terms of nursing short comings, we are ignored when we point out how understaffing and poor skills mix contribute to reduced patient safety and incidents. We have those in power ignoring the evidence that safe ratios directly impact safer patient care. So to our politicians I ask, how many RCAs will it take for change? How many resignations will it take? I don’t want to see and hear any more smirking and condescending politicians telling us how much we are appreciated and how the system is coping. I want some responsible action starting with acknowledgment of the critical reality of what’s happening in our health system along with safe ratios. I have never felt more despondent in my career and yet, I’m also feeling more and more like I need to hang in and fight for my patients and for my profession. So to my fellow nurses and midwives, let us not go down without a fight!

In the peak of omicron, the department was running out of isolation rooms daily, COVID positive patients were waiting in cars for hours but the worst of it was when we had sick immunosupressed oncology kids waiting in cars for an isolation room to be available to keep them safe. In normal conditions those patients should be seen by a doctor within 10 minutes and antibiotics on board within 1 hour.
We had patients with cystic fibrosis in open bays, opposite other patients with suspected COVID. It was awful, heart breaking to not be able to protect those especially vulnerable patients because we simply didn’t have room or resources. In NSW paediatric specialty hospitals we have NO MANDATED RATIOS (something the executive have reminded us of again and again), the children of NSW deserve better.

We normally have 7 RN/EN nurses on the floor for 29 patients. Ratio of 1:5 with our 7th nurse being a team leader and does not take a patient load. Lately Most shifts we have 4 RN/EN nurses for the same 29 patients thats 7-8 per nurse. We are exhausted and becoming frustrated!! How do you expect Nurses to provide quality safe nursing care when we are run off our feet on a day to day basis!

We have senior nurses resigning due to unpleasant conditions, meaning we have all new nurses with less experience and therefore making it very unsafe for patients.

Patients are not receiving quality care!

Staffing is at such critical levels in my hospital that it is just guaranteed that we will be understaffed. Up to 6-8 patients during a day shift. Patient outcomes are so poor that I feel physically sick when coming to work, thinking that I may be killing my patients through negligence due to poor staffing – and poor time management as a result. Anxiety is high. Quitting is seeming more realistic every day.

I am fit & healthy & hoped to keep going but the past two years in primary care has destroyed me. I have resigned to survive

The politicians have shown absolute contempt for our profession and expertise.
They have not listened to our reasonable requests
for safe patient ratios exposing patients to sub standard care and potential neglect & Nurses feeling unsafe in their ability to fulfill their duty of care.
The scenario is untenable as is proven by nurses
leaving the profession or suffering themselves
with mental health or physical issues.
Skill mix is also compromised with inadequate ratios .
I especially feel for the Aged Care Sector as even the most fancy facilities do not remunerate their staff adequately. Multi million dollar providers exploit
gentle , caring , hard working persons to provide
care with 1x RN to manage multiple complex scenarios.
These providers can pay over the award .
I feel gas lighted by the premier & prime minister
they pay us lip service and are self serving .
I would like to see more exposure in a Q&A style on TV &/or radio with these supposed experts and our nurses .
Our remuneration is another bone of contention,
$1 odd an hour extra pre tax .
How insulting & disrespectful .

I’ve been a nurse for almost 30 years & I don’t want to be one anymore. Patients don’t get the care they deserve. Everything is rushed, patient care is rushed, interactions with patients, allied health staff & doctors are rushed. Our shifts are only task-oriented, rushing from one task to the next. Wholistic, patient-centered care is non existent. We need ratios.

I am a post grad, I graduated in December 2020, I’ve been working for 5 months.
In that time I have been forced to look after 10 patients on my own, I’ve been asked to do many many double shifts. afternoon/night duty, day/afternoons on more than one occasion I’ve been on shift for 19+ hours.

When I started at the hospital it’s was the happiest day of my life, now I can’t stand it.
As grads we no longer have an after hours educator, we have little to know support on our ward, we are being denied everything that was promised to us with the NSW Health grad program.

I’m extremely disappointed.

I promised myself at the beginning of my career knowing that I would be faced with death, that no matter what I was doing, I wouldn’t let anyone die alone. At the start of the pandemic, that promise was reinterated, that no matter how busy it got, or if I hadn’t had a break, I would not let someone die alone.

One day, my care for a COVID-19 positive patient was to one way extubate, and allow to die peacefully. I had their family on video conference, and I reassured them that she was not alone as they said their goodbyes.

Unfortunately, I was called away before she died. I ask my patients and their families to trust me, when they are at their most vulnerable so I can care for them effectively. My promise to them was broken and it still haunts me.

What if this was my family? We need safe staffing so that this doesn’t happen.

Covid broke me! The staffing on our ward was poor before Covid. We were constantly working down at least 1 or 2 and always had to absorb the first patient special within the numbers.  I was coming home in tears, physically and emotionally exhausted and distressed because I was constantly being set up to fail in the care of my patients whom I so much prided myself on delivering a good standard of care.  Then came Covid.  It got worse!   More work with PPE and nursing patients who were ? covid and then on confirmation they were shipped out to the Covid ward!! I just could no longer do it! Burnt out I exhausted all my sick leave then followed up with my Annual leave and then my Long Service leave before I resigned.  I signed on as Casual and that was worse… Flicked from ward to ward with spot management of short staffing I decided not doing that.  Self preservation rules!   I am passionate about nursing but no longer am I going to put myself in the position of risking my registration with error by working with unreasonable and safe workloads!   Game Over.   Passionate RN signs off!! Not supported and not valued!!

I am the Nurse Educator.

I am raising my concerns around the lack of nursing ratios and that nursing hours per patient day differ depending on your location of work and not on the acuity of the patients

Two patients present to ED with the same acute diagnostic related group. One patient presents to an ED at a tertiary facility and is admitted and receives 6 nursing hours per patient day on the acute inpatient ward. The other patient presents to an ED at a non-tertiary facility. They are admitted to an acute inpatient ward and receive only 5 nursing hours per patient day. This is health care by postcode in its most blatant form.

All patients deserve them same amount of nursing care no matter what hospital they are admitted to.

All nurses deserve the same amount of workload and capacity to care for their patients no matter what hospital they work at

The treatment by nursing staff is great but no doctor on site to order X-ray or  CT scan on the aged person. They arrive in Emergency at Glen Innes via ambulance with head injury given Panadol sent home what a disgraceful public Health why didn’t she have an head X-ray or a CT scan I would really like to know.the age people are being treated disgraceful and discrimination as Hunter New England don’t have a doctor on site. More staff is needed in all medical fields not this telehealth

We are constantly working at a ratio of 2 AINs to 40 residents and one RN for the whole building. We rarely gets breaks or even have time to go to the toilet

I work in one of the busiest Emergency in NSW. We have been hit by Covid badly each outbreak we are at the epicenter. During the Christmas period at the height of Omicron we have  been so short staffed that  they are days we had to work 1:4 and worst 1:6. We were working in Covid room w/ 2 nurses to 11 ccovid patients. However they gave us an  ICU 1:1 patient who  is extremely confused w/ o providing a nurse specially, We had 3 more confused patient the whole shift we could not do other nursing interventions because we could barely leave our ICU patient 3 out of 4 patient were all climbing out of bed all such high falls risk. On top of this we were getting verbally abused by an Unvaxxed patient who is getting impatient as we couldnt attend to him obviously because we couldnt even leave our confused patients bed side. I had a full mental breakdown on my break i was crying so loudly. What made is worst is that when i was escalating all this issue to our manager we were told of for other issues instead of providing us helping and acknowledging our unsafe working conditions.

1330hr shift commences.Two senior nurses with 10 acute patients unable to take a break, go to the bathroom or even a sip of water

First break 1930hrs. Not because we weren’t working effectively but due to the acuity of the patients and inadequate staff mix ratio

Mental health nurse here. We are expected to manage a 1:10/12 ratio during the day(only one of those a RN) and 1:15 ratio at night. We are reprimanded if we claim for a missed meal break and told we are not using our time efficiently. We are warned if a medication is missed or paperwork is not complete.

We have no time to eat, use the bathroom and have to patrol mask wearing and unauthorised visitors.

Overtime is never paid when we stay to complete our work as it’s evidence of our poor time management.

Midwives are burnt out, it’s so unsafe

A letter to the women I have cared for.

I worked a night shift, with 1 New Grad nurse, I had 9 patients instead of 7 this is not acceptable. 2 x AIN, and 2 x EEN nursed, overtime was not offered .

This is not appropriate and not fair on our Registered Nursed that have just Graduated.

To cope with the Omicron Wave, the hospital went into Red Alert. The nurse to patient ratio stayed at 1:5, The in charge/ Team Leader had to take a pt load, there was nobody to float. We had over 20 covid positive patients in an Aged Care ward, approx 10 patients were either De Isolated from COVID or they did not have COVID. Tha majority of COVID patients were bedbound/full care. The doors were shut, we were only allowed to be gowned up when going into the rooms. We had at least 2 patients who were wanderers and kept coming out of the rooms. We were told that as it was a Cohourt ward we were not at risk of getting COVID, because we were not a COVID ward!!! Our Senior RN  nurse’s were deployed to COVID wards,  they were replaced with AINs. Nearly every shift the RNs had 10 pts working with  an AIN in COVID rooms.  It’s all about the numbers, if we had become a COVID ward we would have had COVID Marshall’s, full staffing and we would have been supported.

I have been nursing for 30yrs. Staffing is in crisis.constantly working short-staffed which results in minimal patient care.On the ward nurses are constantly time poor and overwhelmed with  our patient allocation. Patients are yelling out for help as nurses can not respond to call buzzers within a reasonable time. Patients are falling and are not being educated and emotionally supported by staff.Breaks my heart to experience and see my colleagues so exhausted and stressed. I drive to my workplace anxious, due to inadequate staffing.Our community and patients deserve better.

I, as well as colleagues, have taken to wearing period proof underwear during that time of the month, in addition to sanitary protection, simply because we do not have time to attend the bathroom and this presents us soiling our clothing

We watch our daughter come home from work obliterated with exhaustion. A New Graduate in the Public System who has always wanted to be a nurse is now questioning her career choice. Shortages of staff are sometimes inevitable but not EVERY day/shift. How is 1x new grad, 1x 2nd year and 1x AIN for 35 geriatric assessment ward patients safe?? There’s no time for any care, as hard as they try. Why would you enter this career and why would you stay as a long time nurse? They don’t get reasonable  leave and forget about any reasonable annual leave in a time which might suit them.  Imagine for one minute if these dedicated nurses walked away for five minutes! Just five minutes of the wards!!  It would be chaos but this government takes, takes and takes. When it all goes terribly wrong it’s the nurses who loose their career, credibility and profession. Stop taking advantage of the fact they care …. That why they are nurses.

I gave birth in a public hospital just before Christmas. I was very close to being diverted to a different hospital to the one I had been attending my whole pregnancy due to staffing shortages. Luckily, I had an induction booked for that morning if I did not go into spontaneous labour by 7am due to my waters breaking 24 hours prior. There were no birth suites available when I arrived and I was put into a small room with my husband where we waited for 7 hours before being given a birthing room. We saw a midwife twice in that timeframe as they were understaffed due to many of them having caught covid. Once we were finally in a room, the midwives were clearly run off their feet. It was clear to see they were being stretched – popping in and out between rooms constantly. I had a long labour and was so impressed with the level of care each midwife (during each shift change) provided when they were very clearly having a difficult time. After birth, I was very aware of mothers being encouraged to be discharged as soon as possible as there were not enough staff to care for so many mothers and babies. I gave birth at 11.23pm on the 23rd of Dec and was home by 1pm on the 25th. Although I was glad to be home, I was expecting a less frantic post birth experience with more one on one care and education from a midwife, being my first baby. After witnessing and experiencing first hand the staffing shortage and impact on mothers, I am in disbelief that more is not being done to support an already stretched system. The staff and patients deserve more.

I had a massive lung bleed but I refused to go to the ER at the local hospital because I had been there a month earlier for the same problem and the place was full. With young people with mental health issues and people with dementia.
There were very few dedicated staff were trying to do their best whilst they were being verbally abused.
It was a very long and noisy night.
Hospitals now feel like dangerous places to be.
Rural hospitals are not being funded or staffed properly.
We are not taking proper care of young people with mental health issues or the elderly with dementia with no proper facilities for them.

Standing at the bedside of a patient today physically makes me sick. ISBAR has nothing on the overwhelming story of their illness, & the debilitating consideration I have to deliver care in a setting that has no comprehension of my impossible care targets. I seek equipment & dressings that do not exist or are ordered for delivery tomorrow. I answer calls for a pan that’s stuck in a sanitizer with a job fix request for a week ago. The next task is answering calls from the pt’s relatives -relaying multiple times the condition of “mum”. Then the manager doesn’t compliment me on forgetting to fill the hourly rounding, patient care board or fluid balance chart – yer it’s my problem hasn’t been touched for 24 hours ? The medication round is the tip of an avalanche that involves the patient, doctor, pharmacy & all before the patient has had breakfast!  I could go on …             No person except a nurse gets this or knows about our job! And if I care for patients then is it too much to ask that someone cares for nurses. We ask if people are OK- well nurses  are saying we are NOT OK!

Essential elements of our care are not being done and our patients are suffering the consequences of our inadequate nurse to patient ratios!

A typical week. Double shift on Monday, double shift on Tuesday, Night shift on Wednesday, Sleep on Thursday, Friday off, extra shift on Saturday , Sunday off. All to help out my fellow nurses and patients then Severe pain and vomiting early hours Monday morning, trip to hospital in ambulance then emergency gallbladder out Tuesday. It just goes to show that we are under extreme pressure and stress causing I’ll health to ourselves all to help those around us we deserve our pay rise and our nurse patient ratios we have requested or you will burn us all out and you will have no one.

I have been working on a Covid ward. Last shift I did we had 7 more patients than we were staffed for. 12 hours with 2 x 20 minute drink breaks. Dehydrated due to donning full PPE to provide patient care. Handing over all that isn’t done to the next shift. It’s the same in every ward. How can you honestly think we are coping. I am leaving my job. I will not take the blame for a preventable death.

Staff are leaving because it’s less strain and stress to pack shelfs with better pay which is leaving us running on a very thin line.

The elderly are being made to wait in their own faeces and urine and as a AIN in a small rural town I’m told to attend the ones that need it more, this should NOT be the case. We are the only people some of them see all day and we are running in and out like a chook with its head chopped off.

Enough is enough.

Oh and the one off pay the staff where given that was taxed and straight back into the government hands. NO more one off payments please give the AINs a payrise not just the RNS.

AINs run the floor and you know we won’t leave our elders to protest.

I work in a high dependency mental health ward. Since the pandemic began, no visitors have been allowed to the ward to see consumers, and all consumer’s leave is cancelled. For this reason patients are even more agitated and distressed than they would normally be.

The service was understaffed before the pandemic began, but this has been the case since I started working as a nurse 5 years ago. Now, almost every shift is understaffed, leaving managers to try to find workers to do overtime. All staff are exhausted.

We are working with significant levels of risk – risk of violence, and risk to vulnerable consumers. Our ward was previously gender segregated to manage risk to vulnerable consumers. The ward is now mixed gender to make room for a COVID ward. We must be adequately staffed EVERY SHIFT to manage these risks. There have already been a number of adverse incidents. We are not currently delivering care in line with the communities’ expectations with such depleted resources.

I work in the public health system where we are chronically and constantly understaffed. We are expected to cover understaffed wards without expertise and training in those areas. I had to drop my hours due to constant pressure the led to my body’s inability to cope, I was punished for that. Roster has not been favourable since then. I have been denied my annual leave four times. Because of stress my family has succumbed to Covid, no support what so ever now I am lying at home note able to care for my family.

I’m an Aged Care Assistant In Nursing who got out of working in residential care to community/home care, as the staffing levels were (& still are), too low to safely and effectively undertake the proper care needed in these facilities.

• No time for dinner breaks
• Don’t leave on time
• Get contacted every day asking to  do extra hours/overtime
• Short staffed many shifts
• Not enough nurses hired for ward in total but won’t hire more because over budget (because of overtime and casuals)
• Critically ill patients being cared for on ward in normal numbers because of lack of ICU beds

In charge of ward, the only senior RN, 3 AIN’s an one EEN…when things go south of good who looks after my patients??  Let alone attempting to guide the new staff, or orientate the casuals I should not have a patient load but this non-ratio stuff puts staff at risk of severe mental exhaustion and our patients health at risk.  I moved on and out of the hospital as I was de-moralised and still am.  I despair for all young nurses… it was never this bad for me and Ive been a nurse for 42 years.

I am a midwife.  Over the last 10 years the women and babies I support have slowly changed from healthy young women giving natural birth to term babies to higher rates of c/s at earlier gestations with more complex medical histories.  The result is increasing care and support required for each dyad.  Staffing levels have not changed in this time.  A 12hr shift allows 2hr 13 min per room (not per dyad) on the postnatal ward, less on the antenatal ward.  With the list of policy driven assessments for these women and babies at increased risk of negative outcomes getting longer and there is simply not enough time to meet the educational and emotional needs of the families.  This was before Covid.  Women’s needs have dramatically increased as they cannot have the family and friend support due to fears of infection for themselves and their babies.

Every midwife knows that if there is a catastrophic outcome that he/she will be held accountable for not following every policy, for not managing workloads appropriately, for not getting the medication or assessment done on time and will ultimately be facing a tribunal and potentially stripped of registration.  Midwives are not staying in practice.  Hospitals are having difficulty recruiting.  Midwives are being replaced with whatever warm body is available – RN, EN, AIM, AIN.  This makes the workload even worse.

I started cutting back the number of shifts I would work in a fortnight, never more than 2 in a row.  Then I cut back to only 8hr shifts.  I have not worked in a hospital since Decemver and am now cleaning hotel rooms to pay my bills.  I feel nauseous every time I think of stepping back onto a maternity ward.

The disparity between the level of care the women deserve and that I know I am able to provide and the level of care that is allowed under the current restraints makes going to work untenable.  I am on strike until there is evidence of a real improvement in staffing, not just lip service about the value of women and children in society.

Surgical and orthopaedic ward:

• high acuity, high turnover of patients, one room (High visibility room- HVR) dedicated to 4 falls risk delirium/dementia patients with one staff allocated to this room.
• if bed base is 13 only 3 staff, which can be the in charge RN, TRN, EEN, or In charge RN and 2 EEN (one staff allocated to HVR leaving 2 to 9 patients)
• if bed base is 17 only 2 night staff which is unsafe if the HVR is left unattended to attend to other patients on ward and vice versa.
• CNE is being used as part of the nursing hours to take patient load, not able to support staff.
• High visibility room has one staff allocated and cannot leave patients as high falls risk, cannot prevent 4 patients at once from falling, no IPS approved, although tag team nursing, this puts alot of stress on all staff as unable to provide the nursing care we want to as workload is excessive
• no meal breaks or very late breaks taken impacts on staff health
• staff doing overtime in same ward and even providing overtime to assist other wards which is causes fatigue and affects health
• skill mix an issue- eg In charge RN counted in numbers, with TRN and EEN for 13 patients. Some shifts having to work short numbers
• Scrub nurses being deployed to work in the ward and take patient load- unsafe as they have not given medications the entire time they have been a scrub nurse and has not been given the time to familiarise themselves with EMeds and medications- this can lead to medication errors.
• increase in documentation required

All these points highlight some of the issues faced on our ward. This impacts directly on patient safety and nursing staff’s health and well being. These experiences happened prior to covid and even worse in current times. We are unable to provide the care we want to give to our patients and patients unable to receive the care they deserve.

Covid broke me! The staffing on our ward was poor before Covid. We were constantly working down at least 1 or 2 and always had to absorb the first patient special within the numbers.  I was coming home in tears, physically and emotionally exhausted and distressed because I was constantly being set up to fail in the care of my patients whom I so much prided myself on delivering a good standard of care.  Then came Covid.  It got worse!   More work with PPE and nursing patients who were ? Covid and then on confirmation they were shipped out to the Covid ward! I just could no longer do it! Burnt out I exhausted all my sick leave then followed up with my Annual leave and then my Long Service leave before I resigned.  I signed on as Casual and that was worse… Flicked from ward to ward with spot management of short staffing I decided not doing that.  Self preservation rules!   I am passionate about nursing but no longer am I going to put myself in the position of risking my registration with error by working with unreasonable and safe workloads!   Game Over.   Passionate RN signs off!! Not supported and not valued!!

I’m an ED CNE & due to the extreme & constant pressure on our ED, I take a patient load daily to try & help & it still feels like something bad is going to go down. Our NUM has tried multiple times to get support for extra staff & we are just told no. We have more isolation beds open to cope with covid & upper management refuse to allow an extra nurse each shift in order to look after these beds that are always open. We continue to work on low nursing numbers with more & more beds open & are just expected to keep flexing well beyond safe ratios. The increased toll of being in & out of “covid rooms” also makes the flow so disrupted & takes up more nursing time. On night shift it can be 1:8 in ED with multiple of those being isolation rooms. It’s not safe. We are drowning.

We are nowhere near to coping, we are exhausted, the ED nursing staff are so flat, there is no joy in coming to work any more. If I didn’t have nurses guilt I would’ve left already. We tried to organise a strike, the union couldn’t come into the hospital to talk to us & it was sooo busy noone could leave to sign up. Many fear the repercussions of striking.

I don’t even fathom the thought of trying to get cne work done. I don’t know how to keep supporting the staff when NSW health doesn’t even care about our professional safety

Working extra hours on a weekly basis as they say our staffing profile is adequate is not fair. As a NM, it is frustrating trying to roster staff when there is NO staff available and you constantly have to beg staff to work extra shifts to ensure patients are provided with adequate and safe nursing care. This is not fair to the patients and to the nursing staff especially when patients complain that they are not getting care they expected. Clinical hours roll into management days as there are vacancies to be covered and yet the government expects accreditation standards to met. Please come and work on the ground so that you will see how dire staffing is. We need more staff on the ground. We need more funding to hire nursing staff and incentives to keep staff.

I promised myself at the beginning of my career knowing that I would be faced with death, that no matter what I was doing, I wouldn’t let anyone die alone. At the start of the pandemic, that promise was reinterated, that no matter how busy it got, or if I hadn’t had a break, I would not let someone die alone.

One day, my care for a COVID-19 positive patient was to one way extubate, and allow to die peacefully. I had their family on video conference, and I reassured them that she was not alone as they said their goodbyes.

Unfortunately, I was called away before she died. I ask my patients and their families to trust me, when they are at their most vulnerable so I can care for them effectively. My promise to them was broken and it still haunts me.

What if this was my family? We need safe staffing so that this doesn’t happen.

In a small rural facility with a 20 bed aged care attached to a 6 bed acute ward and an Emergency department there is 2 x RNs one EEN, one AIN and a HSA on morning and evening shifts and on nights 2 x RNs and a HSA. One RN up in Acute/ED and the others in the aged care facility. The ward can get full with 6 acute patients leaving the one RN who is in charge of the whole hospital to care for 6 at times high care heavy patients. Then into ED comes, suture removals, lacerations, abdominal pain, shingles, vaccination reactions, chest pains, or traumas ect. All presentations ranging from Cat 1-5. We can call our NUM in from home if after hours and get the RN from the aged care up to help in full PPE (leaving the residents in the aged care with no RN) But you only do that for Cat 1 or 2. Even if you only have Cat 3-5 in ED you can be stuck in there for hours, leaving your acute patients with no nurse. No showers happen, no Obs, running back and forth from ED answering buzzers in acute for assisting to toilet, providing analgesia, IV antibiotics, wound care, plus when intragam infusions come in or blood transfusions, these are also the responsibility of the same  multitasking RN. This is extremely unsafe and unfair to the patients and the nurse. This needs to be changed. There needs to be an RN who is solely responsible for Emergency and when no-one is in ED they could help with the ward.

We, Nurses and Midwives, like everyone else in the world didn’t sign up for a global pandemic but boy did we SHOW UP! We didn’t have the option to work from home, turned up when our own family were at risk, before vaccinations were available and at times without  access to appropriate PPE. We were given back handed complements of how good a job we had done but missed out of pay increases whilst our politicians got pay rises. We are denied workers Comp for Covid despite working in a Covid ridden environment with staff known as close contracts being made to continue to come to work – we get less sick days than teachers! We were at one point encouraged to have sick leave for any cold like symptom yet if we use our sick leave we have a “please explain” meeting with bosses for having more than 5 occasions of illness within 12 months! We are also mother / fathers/ sons and daughters and our families need us too. We are disrespected by this government with constant ignoring of ratios and no factoring of acuity. Not counting babies has been an issue for a long time but how can a baby of a sick Covid positive woman not be counted? They require observations, compete cares and monitoring when their mother who can not have a support person stay with her is ill and can’t tent to baby cares herself. These babies require nursing, observations and note taking yet are just an “added uncounted extra”.
a job we loved is becoming a constant cause of stress and fatigue. Compassionate nurses are slowing dying off from burn out.

Hospitals are not a business they are a necessity. Give us the conditions we require to do the job we are professionally trained for. Look after the nurse and you’ll have excellent nurses, neglect the nurse and you’ll have neglected patients.

Safer ratios, count babies, appropriate sick leave, and pay nurses what they deserve for nurses are the backbone to our healthcare as a nation.

I’m a casual and every ward I go to at least one nurse is working a double shift and even then, we are often short staffed.

The other night we had 3 nurses to 20 patients.  One nurse was working a double. Most of the patients suffering the effects from strokes, were very heavy, unco ordinated with little incite to their inability to mobilise independently. Most requiring at least 2 nurses just to roll or mobilise them. When one of the nurses tried to have their break, we were left with only two nurses to 20 patients.  This resulted in 3 x near falls in just 15 mins each requiring the nurse who was on break to come and assist. Needless to say, no-one had a break including no toilet breaks.

On another occasion, while working in a COVID ward I was left for 45 mins holding onto a dislodged trachy before getting assistance. I could not reach the staff assist button, as I was trying to hold the trachy, and due to the PPE and heavy plastic door coverings, no one could hear me yelling. The other patient in the room, who also had a trachy, required suctioning and was not in a condition in which he could press the call button, it was by shear chance that another nurse came in to ask for assistance with her patients otherwise I don’t know how much longer I would have been waiting for assistance.

These are only two of many instances in which patients have been put at risk due to being short staffed.  Most shifts, if you do manage have a break, the breaks are interrupted by staff assists calls, most times we don’t have the chance to go to the toilet (resulting in many nurses wearing incontinence pads just in case) nearly every ward the nurses are working double shifts, many great experienced nurses have already left, yet the government officials keep saying our hospitals are coping. WE ARE NOT COPING!! And it is putting patents at risk.

We are NOT coping.

Staffing shortages on most shifts.

Junior, new grad, and students often the majority of staff on shift.

Increased responsibility on senior staff.

We often do not have the equipment we need to safely provide care! We do not have enough CTGs on a regular basis… Or they are missing pieces. We do not have a working ultrasound. We regularly run out of consumables such as buckets, bowls, blood taking equipment, and paperwork.

We are not coping! At all!

It’s a system full of near misses, catch ups, and close calls!

The extra stress and work required dealing with this pandemic, with little or no recognition from management is breaking staff.  The abuse we receive from the public re support people and RAT on arrival, and masks we have to enforce… it’s all getting too much, on top of what we already deal with in a busy birthing suite…

We feel nobody is listening.

The mental health system has assisted the community by admitting people into mental Health COVID wards. These people included our usual cohort of individuals withdrawing from illicit substances. The behaviors included: refusing to abide by COVID ward requirements of isolation, destroying property including room air purifiers and other ward property.

The wards have cared for forensic people contained by the legal system, for one reason or another (including the inability of the police force to manage a forensic COVID patient).
Mental Health wards have managed people without a mental illness but could not stay in the medihotels due to their abhorrent antisocial behaviors. Once again staff who are medically trained facing violent abusing threatening behavior.
The main stress for staff was the priority of attempting to keep other patients safe who did not deserve to be placed in such inappropriate environments.

Staff  are working in these dangerous environments without PMVA training. Extremely junior inexperienced staff.

Hearing media reports that the health system is coping is offensive and dishonest.

Clinical indicators are not accurate and manipulated. Not all incidents are reported. When they are, managers are changing staff reports. This needs further investigation.

Us nurses and midwives have gone above and beyond during this pandemic. We have put the needs of our patients before our own, and before the needs of our family. We have done so, with very little in return. We work our guts off, don’t have the chance to eat or go to the toilet all shift, as well as not even having the chance to have a drink of water, with some wards not allowing staff to even bring their drink bottle to the staff station.

I am so sick of turning up to work every shift and being short staffed. The very odd occasion where we are fully staffed, is a rarity. We have lost so many of our core staff, our experienced staff, because they cannot cope with our working conditions. We feel guilty when the next shift after us is left short, so more often than not, someone will stay back and do overtime. Our managers are begging us to do OT or help with any hours.

When will enough be enough? What will it take for the government to see that we are not coping? Because patients are dying and staff are leaving, and they still can’t see that we are not coping.

Having to do multiple overtime to cover covid positive colleagues on isolation. When my children were sick, I could not care for them as I was asked to come to work due to there was no one to cover my shifts. When I and family succumbed to covid, I felt that there was no support at all, I could not even access the special covid leave! When we had to get PCR test done at Blacktown Hospital, the result for my family came back eleven days later. By that time it was too late!

I feel like St Joan of Arc.  Suited up in our armour (PPE) we went into the battle field; facing risk to our health & that of our families.  The government lauded our efforts called each of us a hero.  Then suddenly we are portrayed as witches; money grabbing, ungrateful (lucky to have a job).  We want a better deal for our patients/clients/residents i.e. adequate staffing, and fair renumeration. For this  governments want to burn us at the stake.

I work full time in mental health, front line crisis response. Since October last year all full time workers RDO days requests have been denied. For example, in January everyone who requested their RDO days were instead rostered on.

Also chronically short staffed and working double shifts without appropriate breaks because the service is so under resourced. Several resignations bc of the poor treatment of staff by leadership and being told to ‘suck it up’ when concerns raised.

People afraid to speak up bc they fear of how they may be treated.

Came onto nightshift the other week to 38 fast track patients on my own – had 2 very elderly patients 1 who had a small brain bleed another who couldn’t mobilise on her own as well patients with urosepsis, profuse haematuria requiring bladder irrigation, 2 potential torsions requiring immediate attention, someone unwell after a having a cardioversion 2 days prior, and an unwell mental health patient needing psych admission not to mention an array of other patients needing small things done such as ECGs blood tests cannulas removed IVABx which normally are quick and easy tasks but they very quickly built up. From 11pm onwards it was myself and 1 registrar managing all of fast track on our own. Patients who should’ve been in acute beds were overflowing into fast track because we had nowhere else to put them.

I was very grateful that my colleagues in the paediatrics area of the dept were able to take turns helping me but that meant leaving 1 nurse to up to 8 children for an extended period of time.

This is not an uncommon occurrence either – all of my colleagues have stories very similar to this. It’s now a rarity and almost a luxury  if we’re fully staffed for a shift.

Is this what coping is?

We, Nurses and Midwives, like everyone else in the world didn’t sign up for a global pandemic but boy did we SHOW UP! We didn’t have the option to work from home, turned up when our own family were at risk, before vaccinations were available and at times without  access to appropriate PPE. We were given back handed complements of how good a job we had done but missed out of pay increases whilst our politicians got pay rises. We are denied workers comp for Covid despite working in a Covid ridden environment with staff known as close contracts being made to continue to come to work – we get less sick days than teachers!!! We were at one point encouraged to have sick leave for any cold like symptom yet if we use our sick leave we have a “please explain” meeting with bosses for having more than 5 occasions of illness within 12 months! We are also mother / fathers/ sons and daughters and our families need us too. We are disrespected by this government with constant ignoring of ratios and no factoring of acuity. Not counting babies has been an issue for a long time but how can a baby of a sick Covid positive woman not be counted? They require observations, compete cares and monitoring when their mother who can not have a support person stay with her is ill and can’t tent to baby cares herself. These babies require nursing, observations and note taking yet are just an “added uncounted extra”.
a job we loved is becoming a constant cause of stress and fatigue. Compassionate nurses are slowing dying off from burn out.

Hospitals are not a business they are a necessity. Give us the conditions we require to do the job we are professionally trained for. Look after the nurse and you’ll have excellent nurses, neglect the nurse and you’ll have neglected patients.

Safer ratios, count babies, appropriate sick leave, and pay nurses what they deserve for nurses are the backbone to our healthcare as a nation.

When my AHPRA registration was renewed for the pandemic. I started applying for any job advertised.

Eventually, I was employed as a Casual with NSW Health, but to date, I have not been called or asked to work. I advised that I was available for any type of work i.e., courier, admin, vaccination, pathology.

I finally was employed by AWH doing vaccinations as a casual.

So, Perrottet, all those nurses that need a break from working full time and then picking up shifts on their days off. You are responsible for their mental health & well-being. What are you going to do?

Never in my life did I think I would ever quit nursing. For as long as I can remember I always dreamt and wanted to be a nurse. Over the last two months I have looked at alternate degrees to leave the profession and health industry. I’m not the only one doing this. Majority of my colleagues are looking to leave also. We are tired we are fatigued. We are understaffed,  under resourced and unsupported. It is unsafe and this isn’t what we signed up for.

This is not the best healthcare system in the world and if it is the world is in serious trouble.

I’m a new graduate nurse. I already feel so burnt out. The current staffing makes it close to impossible to train new staff correctly, we just get sent straight into work and hope for the best.

On a rare occasion we will have normal numbers working on shift, but we get a call to reallocate our staff to different wards when management finds out we have adequate numbers. Back down to unsafe ratios.
It is frustrating. Patients still expect top class care as if they’re in a 5 star hotel. My pay isn’t reflecting the work I am putting in, when I get home I am exhausted, traumatised, and need the time to wind down and reflect. There is no “work-life balance”.

The time I got allocated to the covid ward was on nights (that is, no nursing unit managers or educators around at this time). The ward had 3 staff including myself for 29 patients, they were high care covid patients on high flow oxygen machines, these machines require training (which I hadn’t done), and I had next to no idea how to work with them. The mentality is to just “go in there & try your best to keep them alive”.

It’s disgusting what’s going on in hospitals despite having a glowing reputation for gold standard healthcare. The government has botched it. We’re not coping, it feels like a war zone. I want to quit.

I have friends my age who work a desk job earning almost triple what I earn, they don’t have to clean up body fluid, they don’t get verbally and physically assaulted by patients, they don’t have to worry about bringing covid home to family on a daily basis, they don’t have to wash and bag dead bodies.

Not. Fair.
Not. Coping.

Let’s just say that community health nurses face the same situation with being understaffed. Some services have been redeployed to assist with care of patients at home leaving chronic care services only running on one staff member not the two. Palliative care is always under the pump and not having a casual pool like in the hospitals we struggle to fill the shifts with adequately trained staff. GP surgeries, aged care packages and NDIS expect us to pick up for them when they don’t have the staff and escalate that we are not helping when we are struggling.

As the NUM I am constantly working clinical and supporting the staff to my best ability, work long days and no extra pay for this to ensure patients are cared for and also services and my job is maintained. Community Health also doesn’t have the administrative support like acute facilities and clinical staff complete the admin tasks on top of clinical roles!

Staff are burning out and as the manager I have had enough of being over looked in community health as we play just as much a vital role for patients keeping them out of hospital or early discharge to help free up beds.

Working in a small metropolitan ED, with over 20yrs experience, and over the past 2 years I have come to really dislike my job.

The constant poor skill mix, bed block and extended wait times for treatment were the norm, and we as ED nurses struggled to cope but out of our drive not to let the team down we soldiered on.

Going back over the past 2 years and now coming into the 3rd, we a nursing team are tired and broken. The rampant understaffed shifts, poor skill mix, the barrage of text messages daily for overtime to bearly cover shifts has now become the norm. Let alone being in PPE for extended periods, now poorly hydrated, bladders bursting is the life of an ED nurse. Treating patients worse than animals in cages due to covid. Any simple procedure is now a long drawn out procedure to ensure that infection control is not breached. There seems to be no end in sight. With the pre pandemic broken health system, covid has made it so much worse. I now dislike my job but I turn up to support my fellow nurses to help the team as I do not want to let them down.

I have been forced to continue working even though I was a close contact of covid cases twice in the space of a month. Other employment sectors would not have allowed this to happen. It seems all the powers that be do not have any empathy and are just taking advantage.

I made the decision to reduce my hours from full-time to part-time recently, the only reason was to make moves to eventually leave this profession that I have dedicated over 20 yrs too. I am financially able to do this. I feel incredibly sorry for the younger generation of nurses who are left with no choice but to stay due to financial constraints. This leaves the profession under skilled and under supported.

My question to all politicians is “What are you going to do about this?”

It is time you listened to the workers at the coal face.

Thank you is just not enough and is insulting.

Once the pandemic really took hold I was working in QLD, the first time you walk into a room with someone who is positive is a scary time. There is a definite sense of putting your own health at risk for a strangers health. We had plenty of PPE, I had been fit tested weeks before in preparation, and had a CN teach me donning and doffing, we had a spotter each time to ensure we didn’t contaminate ourselves, as scary as it was I felt safe.
I then came home to NSW. I am a casual here, I arrived for my shift, and was sent to the covid ward (no warning). I had worked in ED a few months earlier and asked to be fit tested where I was told they were too busy to do casuals with all of the permanent staff!! Thank goodness I was fit tested in QLD within 24 hrs of arriving as an agency nurse. I asked for a clean visa, and was told to use one hanging on the wall as there weren’t enough to have a new one for everyone!! It had someone else’s hair on the foam part at the top, given how much I sweat (unusual for me) I guess many different peoples sweat was also unseen in that foam part, I was disgusted.  There were 3 of us in a huge area, not all beds were full however it is a very lonely feeling and it didn’t feel safe to have 3 nurses spread over such a huge area. No one comes into these areas (except some of the amazing drs), no mangers etc, we get to do this alone, lucky us!!!!

Luckily I have another degree and will work in that until the pandemic is over or I travel to QLD to work in far better conditions.

I am a nurse and midwife and have never seen such gross understaffing in the NSW health system in over 14 years working.

The absolute disregard for nurses midwives and patients is disgusting.

Our politicians blatantly lie. The system is falling apart and nurses and midwives are on their knees. Never have we been more ignored unappreciated and unheard.

In my own department I’ve had 14 senior staff members leave. Leaving me the only fully trained FTE in my entire department for weeks.

It is not just Covid it is poor, ineffective and incompetent leadership within NSW health that is leading to such poor staffing and conditions.

Great work NSW. Not .

It’s extremely hard to provide adequate patient care let alone great care that we pride ourselves on. Continuous short staffing is paying a toll. Staff are pressured to make up the shortfall, leading to fatigue and burn out. When staff have had sick leave they’ve been made to feel guilty by management for causing a shortfall in staff. Never have I felt so unappreciated in a job. We are just numbers being played with, with total disregard that we have personal lives and issues to attend to as well as our job. Short cuts are being made and the parameters/process’s are changed to suit to justify change. Eg: no longer are patients covid monitored from ED prior to the ward transfer. Patients are PCR tested and sent to ward, even sharing a room. This has happened even on a immunocompromised ward only to have positive cases causing havoc with patients and staffing. It is no longer about protecting patients, it’s very upsetting. Many colleagues are leaving, unfortunately creating a massive hole in experienced staff. Junior staff are unsupported and terrified.

Enough is enough.

Working extra hours on a weekly basis as they say our staffing profile is adequate is not fair. As a NM, it is frustrating trying to roster staff when there is NO staff available and you constantly have to beg staff to work extra shifts to ensure patients are provided with adequate and safe nursing care. This is not fair to the patients and to the nursing staff especially when patients complain that they are not getting care they expected. Clinical hours roll into management days as there are vacancies to be covered and yet the government expects accreditation standards to met. Please come and work on the ground so that you will see how dire staffing is. We need more staff on the ground. We need more funding to hire nursing staff and incentives to keep staff.

The mental health system has assisted the community by admitting people into mental Health COVID wards. These people included our usual cohort of individuals withdrawing from illicit substances. The behaviors included: refusing to abide by COVID ward requirements of isolation, destroying property including room air purifiers and other ward property.

The wards have cared for forensic people contained by the legal system, for one reason or another (including the inability of the police force to manage a forensic COVID patient).
Mental Health wards have managed people without a mental illness but could not stay in the medihotels due to their abhorrent antisocial behaviors. Once again staff who are medically trained facing violent abusing threatening behavior.

The main stress for staff was the priority of attempting to keep other patients safe who did not deserve to be placed in such inappropriate environments.

Staff are working in these dangerous environments without PMVA training. Extremely junior inexperienced staff.

Hearing media reports that the health system is coping is offensive and dishonest.

Clinical indicators are not accurate and manipulated. Not all incidents are reported. When they are, managers are changing staff reports. This needs further investigation.

Mental Health is expected to have a caseload ratio of 1:6, and 1:8 at night. If we are so lucky to have a fully staffed shift. Our HDU is supposed to have a 3:6 ratio. Many times we are 2 staff members short. We are burning out. This has been ongoing for more than 3 years.

The current NHPPD system of staffing levels is NOT WORKING. This system is profit over people, it is manipulated, it DOES NOT provide appropriate staffing levels, it puts patient safety AT RISK, it puts nurses safety AT RISK & HAS NOT addressed major staffing issues on mental health units.

Mental Health units are IN CRISIS! Mental Health Consumers, especially when they are at their most vulnerable, DESERVE BETTER!

There IS NOT adequate resourcing of public hospital mental health wards. Workloads are NOT reasonable & they are NOT sustainable under the current system. Wards are UNSAFE!

WHAT WILL IT TAKE for mental health consumers & those that care for them to stop being neglected? WHAT WILL IT TAKE for mental health care to be acknowledged & prioritised? WHAT WILL IT TAKE for the state government to adequately resource public hospital mental health units?

We need mandated nurse to patient ratios, on ALL WARDS, ACROSS THE STATE to provide safe patient care.

Nurse to patient ratios will improve patient care. Ratios will help nurses working in an already high demand & high stress job. Ratios will ensure SAFE wards, SAFE workplaces, and re-assure families that their loved ones are getting the best possible care.

Nurse to patient ratios SAVE LIVES!

Working in a busy E.D. we are no strangers to hectic fast paced work environments.

What ever comes through the doors we are ready to mobilise and get a team together to help deliver excellent patient-centred care and help our communities.

For the past two years, we have been at the frontline of the COVID pandemic busting our guts to make sure our patients, colleagues and the community are kept safe. Increasingly we are turning up to shift 2, 3 or even 4 staff members short having to deliver the same model of care.

We are expected to take unsafe patient loads of 6 or 7 patients because… what other options are there?

Nurses are beyond exhausted. Multiple times in a shift you will find staff broken down, crying, struggling to hold it together.

Every shift there will be at least one person on overtime in the midst of a 18 hour shift.
A recent shift had 6 staff on overtime! And then we were short the next day too!

This government keeps telling us were fine… Are they on another planet?

Has Dom Perrottet ever stepped foot in a public hospital? Let alone a E.D. during this crisis?

We have been here for the community and will continue to be here but we deserve some respect for putting our bodies on the line.

We need mandated SAFE STAFF RATIOS!
We need a pay rise.
We need mental health support for nurses during this time.

So many nurses have decided that enough is enough and they are leaving the career, further affecting the skill mix and staffing issues.

If you want us to have a “Strong health system” Dom, how about you show some respect to the staff working in it so they actually want to keep doing their job???

We need action – immediate safe staff ratios, disaster pay, pay rise, mental health support.
And we are willing to fight for it.

As an emergency nurse I was convinced that we would have been pretty prepared and ready for the opening up, it’s not like the government didn’t had 2 years to plan for it, and we have seen the massive impacts across other countries’ health system, how did we not prevent this,  I must be giving them too much credit.

The “Let it Rip” strategy was a massive failure and an act of neglect for the people of NSW and NSW health. To defy and dismiss health advice regarding masks just weeks before Christmas must be considered criminal. In the last weeks of December and first week of January this year our unit lost 1/5 nurses to COVID, within a matter of days we had huge skilled staffing shortages in Emergency. It was correctly predicted that we would see close to 180-200 presentations a day over this period, our normal is about 120, but to try and handle that amount of extra patients  with casuals, unorientated staff and working short in the highest acuity unit in the hospital, we even lost 1 of our educators to COVID and the other dragged to the floor every day, this was all extremely exhausting.

COVID has made everything so much harder, how it has got into nursing homes to this degree disgusts me. Patients with dementia and delirium in ED who are positive are so hard to manage, we had one patient fall in their isolation room and we had no way to stop it. Orthopaedic patients with serious lacerations delayed to be reviewed or operated on for hours because they were all positive. A mental health ward refused to expand into their newly built (3yrs ago) 24 bed ward to take the swell of stressed and COVID-positive patients, wild. Voluntary Mental Health Ward closed causing massive bed block issues in our Emergency department… not a ideal place for anyone long staying.

Our bed block is becoming overwhelming now due to COVID, and that’s not because of patients infected it’s because Staff are. Large parts of the hospital cannot open beds due to unsafe staffing levels. A “capacity crisis” is called every day but nothing changes. Most morning shifts we are lucky to be allocated 1 bed in the entire hospital after people have been stuck there for over 60 hours in ED. ED overcrowding kills. I am sick of because it was all preventable.

The failures to predict, or just act on the idea that people would swamp testing centres immediately after letting COVID run free in the community just shows incompetence. I feel sympathy for my managers for not being given resources to fend off this tide of people, families, children, workers, travellers all seeking swabs around New Years and then proceeding into a pseudo lockdown for them for an unclear time was just mind boggling. Was it 14 days?, 10 days?, 7 days plus 3 with a RAT test…. What a nightmare.

Only positive was that most of the people responsible for these failings were off on leave, and we didn’t have to speak to them, because they don’t have the answers, the staff on the floor have the solutions to this mess and should be respected and listened to. Perrotet and co all need to go #letitripfailed

For years we have been campaigning for Ratios for patient safety only for it to fall on the Governments deaf ears.  Long before Covid hit us we often had nursing shortages on shift, poor skill mix, RN sick leave replaced by AINs and huge amounts of overtime on offer.  I don’t know how we managed to get through it and keep our patients safe but we did, and then along comes COVID.  We didn’t know what hit us.  Patient numbers swelled, nurses were deployed from each ward to staff Covid Units, they were off isolating  due to close contacts or God forbid off for weeks after succumbing to the virus. Staff are exhausted from constantly working overtime, and with the overtime, wards still short staffed.  We all worried that we would take it home to our families too.  I work in the wards, and it is bad enough.   I don’t even have time to chat with patients during the course of my shift, to offer them the emotional support that I normally would because they are alone and frightened about the situation they find themselves in.  all we can do is concentrate on completing all the tasks we must do,  I don’t sleep well at night, it plays in my mind over and over.  I feel for my colleges in ICU and Emergency.  I just don’t know how they do it day after day, Sometimes working 6 to 8 staff members down on a shift.   Its just a hot mess! I take my hats off to them.  Its bloody hard work and still no real acknowledgement from the Government.  We desperately need our ratios NOW, before the next wave hits us. It is the best way to achieve safe outcomes for our patients. Our residents in Western Sydney deserve better.   The residents in NSW deserve better, as do the nurses and midwives. A Covid allowance in our pay would be a good start.   We deserve to be given the money that the Government took from us since 2020. and we deserve a decent payrise.  2.5% doesn’t cut it anymore with the increased costs of living.

The pandemic has brought with it a steep rise in people experiencing mental health issues. As a result, public mental health services are being flooded. Even before COVID-19, mental health nurses were struggling to keep up but now we are drowning.

We are being forced to push people out of the units faster and faster to make space for the next person who needs a bed. Even if this means discharging people to unsafe environments that contributed to their mental health issues, or if they are still mentally unwell and a risk to themselves or others. Nurses are leaving mental health en masse, and as a result mental health units are chronically understaffed. Those of us who stayed are working with increasingly unsustainable workloads, expected to do the same amount of work each shift with fewer the nurses. We can no longer guarantee safety for our patients or ourselves, with incidences of aggression becoming not just daily but every shift.

We feel like we are failing every single patient that comes into our beds. They came to get help, to find a way to get better. But with things the way they are, mental health nurses have become at best bandaids on bleeding stumps and at worst are just working in a system that causes harm. It’s become commonplace that when I come home from work yet again because I put patient care before my personal time, I breakdown in tears from stress and the knowledge that I came into mental health nursing to help and it never feels like I’m doing that any more.

I’ve watched so many of my coworkers throw in the towel and leave. I don’t judge them, there is only so much a person can take before they have to leave for their own mental health. I watch those of us who stayed have their burnout get worse and losing the passion that brought them there fade away. I really don’t know how much longer we can take it, and I’m genuinely scared that there won’t be any mental health nurses left in hospitals by the end of this.

Our patients deserve so much better. The people of NSW deserve so much better.