About 180 nurses from Wagga Wagga Base Hospital rallied in a local park before marching to the office of state MP Dr Joe McGirr to deliver a resolution from the NSWNMA’s Wagga Wagga branch.
Branch delegate Karen Hart said Dr McGirr was in Sydney for a sitting of parliament and arranged for his assistant to receive the resolution, which called for safe staffing ratios, a pay rise and a COVID allowance.
She said the strike raised members’ involvement and enthusiasm for the safe staffing campaign, led several non-members to join the union and revitalised the branch, which had struggled to get a quorum at meetings.
“People realised there is power in numbers; they were encouraged by the amount of favourable media coverage and support from the community,” Karen said.
“We were at risk of the branch folding and now we have more nominations for branch positions than we need to fill the vacancies.
“Our next task is to organise unofficial stewards on each ward who can be proactive with getting messages to people and keeping them up to date with what’s happening. Each ward or unit can start its own Facebook message group.”
Before the strike, Karen was interviewed by Triple M Sydney and ABC Radio National. On the day, the strike was covered by Prime and WIN TV, local ABC radio and Wagga’s newspaper The Daily Advertiser.
“Nurses were keen to get their views across to the media and spoke as NSWNMA members on the day to give their first-hand experiences,” she said.
