Ambulance strike to leave hospitals ‘bursting at the seams

The Health Services Union is ramping up the pressure on Premier Chris Minns with a new round of industrial action.

Ambulances will refuse to transport patients out of hospitals on Thursday in a fresh strike action set to ramp up pressure on Premier Chris Minns to scrap the public sector wage cap.

Every hospital in the state will be impacted by the strike action which will see thousands of paramedics and patient transport officers refuse to move discharged patients.

No patients will be taken out of hospital by Health Services Union paramedics and patient transport officers from 7am on Thursday to 7am on Friday.

“Hospitals are under stress now, they’ll be bursting at the seams on Thursday,” HSU NSW Secretary Gerard Hayes told The Daily Telegraph.

The transport ban is an escalation of industrial action launched earlier this month to pile the pressure on Mr Minns to deliver on its pre-election promise of scrapping the public sector wage cap to get workers a better deal.

Ambulances will refuse to take patients out of hospital on Thursday. Picture: NCA NewsWire

“This is all due to the fact that two months after Chris Minns was elected, there’s still no movement in relation to the wages cap, no movement in relation to awards modernisation, and no movement in relation to paramedica professional recognistion,” Mr Hayes said.

Workers will continue to take patients to hospital but will no transport them after being discharged.

HSU boss Gerard Haynes.

Ambos will transport patients to hospital but not from hospital.

My Hayes has been calling for the Premier to come good on an election promise to boost public sector wages.

He said Mr Minns could have scrapped the wages cap as soon as he was sworn in by “changing ministerial regulation” but has failed to do so.

Mr Minns said he spoke to the HSU boss “last week” about getting a better deal for public sector workers.

“There’s been dialogue between the government and public sector workers and their representatives over the last week and a week prior to that,” he said.

Mr Minns refused to say when the government will be able to move to remove the public sector wage cap but said negotiations are ongoing.

“I’d like there to be agreement yesterday or today, but that’s not possible. These are really complicated industrial instruments, and we want to make sure we get it right,” he said.

In his first interview after winning the election, Mr Minns told the Telegraph that he would need to pass legislation to remove the public sector wage cap.

That legislation is unlikely to be passed before the end of June, when a number of workplace agreements are set to expire.

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