HUNDREDS of Hunter-based nurses and midwives joined their colleagues in Sydney on a 24-hour strike which has put planned surgeries and treatment on-hold across the state.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association action started at 7am on Tuesday (September 24) in the union's second major stop-work action since Labor came to power in March 2023.
The strike is part of a union push for a 15 per cent, one-year pay rise, which NSW Premier Chris Minns says the state cannot afford.
More than 6000 workers stood together on the steps of NSW parliament, including members of the transport union, electrical trades union and the Australian Workers Union.
Major public rallies were also held in Tweed and Albury, while some staff stayed at work to ensure minimal, life-preserving services were maintained in all public hospitals and health services.
More than 400 surgeries have been cancelled and 81 beds have been closed temporarily, with planned treatment such as chemotherapy put on-hold.
Pressure's on
The strike comes as Hunter-based emergency departments are struggling to treat the number and complexity of patients coming through their doors.
At the John Hunter Hospital on Monday, a 'patient experience officer' told a room full of people at 8pm that there were 108 people waiting to be seen, many who had been there since 12.3opm.
At the same time, there were reports from Calvary Mater Hospital of patients waiting three hours to be seen.
Official data reveals that emergency department presentations have hit record highs in the Hunter New England Local Health district.
Bureau of Health Information says the district recorded 113,365 presentations in the January to March quarter, the highest since records began in 2010.
At the same time, more than 10,000 triple-zero calls were made for an ambulance in Newcastle in each of the last three quarters, also the highest results on record.
Minister's response
Health Minister Ryan Park has acknowledged the unprecedented amount of pressure on hospitals and staff.
But, at a news conference on Tuesday morning he said he was disappointed more industrial action was taking place.
NSW Health agreed to pay nurses an interim 3 per cent pay increase while negotiations continued, back-paid to July 1, he said.
"We accepted the decision from the independent umpire to pay the three and a half percent straight away to make sure that we could get that money into the pockets of nurses and midwives across NSW, Minister Park said.
"This is going to have an impact on the treatment of chronic conditions. This is going to have an impact on the ability for people to move in and through the hospital that need treatment during the day or may be looking to get discharged. There is going to be a significant impact today on health services, and I'm very concerned about that impact
"We have agreed and have begun the roll out of safe staffing ... that will see over the next three years, over 2000 additional nurses and midwives coming into the system, and we're starting in our emergency departments that are under significant pressure at the moment.
"That comes at a cost of around a billion dollars."
Minister Park also acknowledged that a 10-year wages cap had created a gap between the wages of essential workers in NSW and elsewhere.
"But what we simply can't do is do an offer of 15 per cent in a single year."
Industrial Relations Commission president Ingmar Taylor has not yet examined the union's argument for pay rises, but recommended an interim agreement and four weeks of "intensive discussions".
Union's concerns
NSWNMA General Secretary Shaye Candish said the state government had been given ample opportunity to work with the union, but there had been no genuine attempt to negotiate on the pay and conditions claim.
"The state government could have stopped this industrial action from occurring by coming to the table with an improved offer, but it has chosen to ignore us repeatedly," said Ms Candish.
"Nurses and midwives are outraged by the government's unwillingness to negotiate beyond its insulting 3 per cent offer, especially since we found the savings to fund the pay rise.
"If the government doesn't heed our warnings and deliver a decent pay increase, we will see more nurses and midwives leave the system, and patients will be the ones to suffer the consequences."
Staff were "dealing with complex clinical care and increased workloads as patient numbers surged", Ms Candish said when confronted with the latest BHI quarterly data.
"These figures show EDs across the state are being pushed well beyond their limits and this is having a severe impact on the staff and patients."
Worse to come
AMA NSW president Kathryn Austin has also warned that the BHI's statewide data revealed "a catastrophe waiting to happen".
The system was straining under the weight of increased demand and complexity at a time when budgets were being slashed, Dr Austin said.
Doctors and other health workers were pushed to the limit and the system was being held together by their goodwill, she said.
"Patients can expect worsening figures in subsequent quarters and that means increasingly poor interactions with a desperately underfunded health service," Dr Austin said.
