WA nurse Julia says working the halls of the emergency department has become more like disaster management than nursing.
Burnt out and stressed, she was resigning from her job as a nurse in a public hospital and she said she was not alone.
"I'm just trying to manage the flow of people and trying not to let anyone die in our waiting room," she told ABC Radio host Nadia Mitsopoulos on Thursday.
Julia, who is using a pseudonym to avoid repercussions from her current employer, is among a growing number of nurses speaking out about stressful and exhausting working conditions in hospitals as Western Australia braces for a new wave of COVID-19.
She has resigned from her job but remains employed at this time.
Protocols abandoned as hospitalisations rise
While most COVID-19 safety protocols have been abandoned in WA, hospitalisations from the virus were at a record high of 459 on Thursday — leading to calls for mandates to be reintroduced to try to reduce the number of COVID cases and relieve pressure on nurses.
State secretary of the Australian Nursing Federation Mark Olson said the WA government should reintroduce stronger restrictions, including mask mandates.
"The platitudes that I'm hearing from the politicians, including the Health Minister, who says 'we value our nurses' and then there's nothing," Mr Olson said.
Meanwhile, nurses say their salaries are also disproportionate to the level of stress they are experiencing at work.
On Wednesday, hundreds of health workers rallied for the second time this month at a stop-work meeting to call for higher wages.
While the inflation rate in WA is 7.6 per cent, wage increases in the public sector have been capped at 2.75 per cent or 2.5 per cent with a $1,000 sign-on bonus.
Patients in corridors
Julia said her colleagues were at breaking point.
She said patients were regularly being treated in corridors, including at least 10 people during a recent shift, and nurses felt unable to cope.
"They haven't been able to give the care they want to give to patients," she said.
She called on the WA government to offer nurses a one-off bonus — such as the one provided by the NSW government to public sector nurses last month — to reflect their increased workload.
Tears over palliative patients a final straw
Rebecca Thompson was also a nurse before leaving her job a month ago.
Ms Thompson, who worked as an educator supporting junior nurses at the beginning of their careers, said she had become so disillusioned with the profession that she had no plans to return.
She said other senior nurses had resigned for similar reasons.
"One of the biggest things that hit me most was some dear friends of mine who are senior nurses came away crying from their shift because they had three palliative care patients and we're not a palliative care ward," she said.
"And they couldn't give the care that they wanted to palliative patients and that's very important to nurses."
She said junior nurses were equally affected by staffing pressures and exhaustion.
Ms Thompson said there was a shortage of two nurses on most shifts, forcing already overstretched workers to handle more patients.
"Emergency departments are going through such trauma down there, but then when they get up to the wards it's the same."
Melissa (not her real name) is a registered nurse at a public hospital in WA
She agreed younger nurses were losing the senior staff needed to train them.
"If we don't look after senior nurses to train up amazing, well-educated, beautiful baby nurses, we've just got such a mismatch," she said.
Junior nurses in ER
Julia echoed Melissa's concerns about the loss of senior staff.
"The emergency departments and wards are going to be staffed by very junior staff because senior staff are burning out and leaving the profession."
Earlier this week, Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said she had not heard any reports of patients being treated in corridors.
"I haven't had any reports of that at this stage," she said.
"But I will say … our hospitals are very busy. Our demand is high.
"We always prefer patients to be in beds and in wards, of course.
"And I would certainly not expect that to be for any length of time or period of time."
Premier Mark McGowan said pressure on hospitals around Australia was the main subject of conversation at national cabinet meetings.
He has "strongly encouraged" people to wear masks indoors, while promoting the message that WA is "open for business" to tourists and encouraging visitors.
Both Western Australia's Premier and Health Minister said they would wear masks to set an example but continued to resist calls for mandates.
