Westmead Hospital ICU nurse Amy Halvorsen has a simple message for NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet: "Stop playing with people's lives".
That was the statement scrawled on the sign held by Ms Halvorsen, one of about 60 intensive care nurses who protested outside the Sydney hospital's emergency department on Wednesday.
Ms Halvorsen said ICU nurses at Westmead were at breaking point due to COVID-19, and needed more help from the state government.
"There is no on-the-ground actual support," Ms Halvorsen, who resigned from her role in protest earlier this month, said.
"We're not OK and we're being told just to 'get on with it', 'come in, do your best', 'well done', 'thank you'. We don't want 'thank you', we want safe staffing."
ICU nurses at the hospital say they are being pushed to the brink as COVID-19 cases climb, lumping them with excessive overtime and huge workloads.
They say key issues for the facility's 170 ICU nurses include working 18-hour days, and doing long shifts without breaks.
Staffing shortages have also meant a lack of "hands on oversight" in the hospital's most critical ward, the nurses claim.
Timothy Blofield, a Westmead nurse and secretary of the hospital's branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association, added his voice to the protest.
Mr Blofield told reporters pressures on staff at Westmead were so dire they were "struggling to keep this place going".
"There's only so much that the system can absorb," he said.
"We're seeing massive amounts of overtime, it's another everyday occurrence and it can get pretty bad in there.
"At the very worst of times you can have someone chucking a double shift, which is anywhere between 16 to 20 hours long."
He called on Mr Perrottet to make the trip to Westmead and see for himself the state-of-affairs at western Sydney's major hospital.
"Come to Westmead Hospital, come to this heathcare system that you think is working. Come here, have a look and talk to these nurses, ask them if they think the system is coping."
The union's acting general secretary Shaye Candish said the action was about giving the public an insight into the "desperate" situation at the ICU.
She urged the government to move fast to fix understaffing before things got even worse.
"The NSW government needs to be up front with the community and concede the health system is not coping," she said.
"The government needs to take action to urgently support nurses and midwives in the biggest health crisis we've ever faced."
NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said he was aware of the pressures on nurses and had met with the union to address their concerns.
"I have been listening to their concerns and we are certainly considering some of the operational challenges they have," Mr Hazzard told reporters on Wednesday.
"All I can really say at this point is the government is doing everything possible to address these concerns."
