Television news coverage showed nurses and midwives will not be intimidated into silence.
Channel 10 News reporter Lachlan Kennedy stood on the steps of parliament house as his camera operator panned over the crowd of nurses below.
“This is a major step for nurses and midwives to be taking today…They are angry, they are desperate and they are sending the Perrotet government a very clear message,” Kennedy said.
Several nurses stepped forward to Channel 10 to speak their minds.
“No one seems to care that there’s people behind the numbers. We’re humans and the people we look after are humans and it’s not fair. We’re tired and we’ve had enough,” one nurse said.
A Westmead Hospital nurse, Julie Butterworth, described the strike as being “like the last stand for us.”
Her colleague said, “We are losing staff left right and centre. People are tired, people are exhausted.”
Outside parliament a nurse carried a home-made placard that declared, “1:38 is not safe”. She told Channel 10, “We need one to 3 in ED. I had to work a night shift on my own with 38 patients and one doctor. It’s so unsafe.”
On Channel 7 News, midwife Erin Smith said, “We are burnt out, we’re anxious and it’s impacting our patients.”
Nurse Hirunee Sarathchandra made it clear to Channel 7 that nurses had been left with no alternative but to take industrial action: “We don’t want to be here today striking – we want to be looking after our patients,” she said.
Channel 7 reported that nurses’ protests in regional areas were just as lively as the Sydney demonstration. Channel 7 showed footage from rallies on the north coast, south coast, Tamworth and Broken Hill.
A Tamworth nurse, Jill Telfer said, “We’re going home in tears every bloody night.”
“They need to stop saying that we’re coping and everything’s fine,” a Broken Hill nurse said. “It wasn’t fine before this last two years and it’s much worse now.”
Nurse rallies outside Sydney were also covered by Channel 9 News Sydney.
“From the coast to the bush, nurses were in full voice with the same force as their Sydney colleagues,” said reporter Liz Daniels. “Newcastle, Tamworth, Taree, Bathurst, Lismore, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie to name a few …As the 2023 election draws near you can expect to be seeing a lot more of this. This is a political problem that’s only growing louder.”
A nurse told Channel 9, “Wearing the PPE is very hot and when you don’t have enough staff and you’re running around trying to care for people it’s very hard.”
Another nurse said, “It’s been a whirlwind of a year. We’ve had a lot of people quit nursing. I’ve never seen such a mass exodus of people leaving the profession.”
On Nine’s A Current Affair (ACA), a reporter noted that “Nurses are clearly fed up with being pushed around by the government. And patients think they deserve more too.”
A hospital patient told ACA, “I think the nurses definitely all need a medal and they certainly need more help. Even more so than the money, they need help to run the wards.” ICU nurse Joy told ACA: “No one wants their family member to die in a room by themselves but that’s what it’s coming to at the moment. There are so many nurses that are quitting, so many nurses that are fed up.”
Added another nurse: “It’s so unfair. We want proper staffing ratios so we can look after our children effectively.”
A third nurse, Audrey Figues (Auburn Branch), told ACA, “We need more help. We can’t keep going on like this. We’re burnt out….We can’t look after our patients properly if we don’t look after ourselves. We can’t look after our patients if you don’t listen to us.”