Lismore Base nurses, midwives strike for better patient to staff ratios

Lismore nurses have opened up about ‘diabolical’ staffing shortages, with some workers moving to Queensland for safer conditions and better pay. Watch the video.

Dozens of tired and worn-to-the-bone healthcare workers have attended a strike at Lismore Base Hospital to demand better staffing ratios.

The Lismore staff join those across NSW in striking for 24 hours to demand shift by shift nursing and midwifery staffing ratios.

Specifically, they want ratios of one nurse to three emergency patients, mothers and paediatric visitors, babies counted in patient numbers, general wards staffed with 80-85 per cent senior nurses and more.

Secretary and delegate of the Lismore mental health branch, Keir Loughlin, said the ratio fight had continued to fall on deaf ears. Picture: Tessa Flemming

Keir Loughlin, secretary and delegate of the Lismore mental health branch, said the ratio fight had “continued to fall on deaf ears”.

“Increasingly our hospitals are in diabolical staffing situations,” she said.

“Lismore Base is currently being propped up by agency nurses on short-term contracts and there’s over 100 of them.

“There’s no plan to retain the workforce we have. Nurses are leaving to go to Queensland where they do have ratios and they do get paid more.”

Ms Loughlin said she had lost two nurses alone from her small ward after they moved to Queensland, with another two about to leave.

In Queensland, Victoria and the ACT professional-to-patient ratios are mandated by their governments.

“They will tell you this was the floods, but it’s been happening before the floods,” Ms Loughlin said.

She said the older adult mental health ward had been closed since the floods due to staff shortages.

“There has been no inpatient service for adults over 65 suffering from a mental health conditions for six months,” she said.

“That’s appalling.

“People are being discharged from mental health wards sooner than they otherwise should be to make room for other people which means they come bouncing back.

“It’s worse than people can imagine.

“I’m sure Lismore does not know how bad, and what the nurses up here have been trying to deal with, over a long time.”

Lismore Base Hospital nurse Penny Anderson said the past five years had offered nurses below inflation pay rises.

“There are not enough hours in the day to give our patients the care they need and deserve,” she said.

“Over the last few years it’s escalated to crisis point. Covid tipped us over the edge.

“We are burnt out and broken and we are not coping.”

Lismore nurse Penny Anderson spoke to fight for a burnt out and broken nursing sector. Picture : Tessa Flemming

She said senior nurses were leaving the public sector in “droves” taking their experience with them.

Graduate nurses and agency staff, she said, were subsequently being set up to “make mistakes with potentially fatal consequences”.

“This puts patients lives and our registrations at risk,” she said.

“Your postcode should never determine your healthcare.

“We pay the same taxes, we do the same hip replacements. So why shouldn’t our community get the same level of nursing care?”

Lismore MP Janelle Saffin speaks in support of strike action for better staff to patient ratios. Picture: Tessa Flemming

Lismore MP Janelle Saffin said the issue of ratios was about safer staffing.

“It’s something any government should do,” she said.

A NSW Health spokesperson released a statement to The Northern Star saying the action was in defiance of orders from the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.

“It also ordered that the Association must not authorise or encourage members of the union to organise or take industrial action,” it read.

“The NSW Government and NSW Health have engaged in extensive and ongoing discussions with the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association.

“On 17 August 2022, the IRC made a new award covering Nurses and Midwives at NSW Health. The award facilitated a 3 per cent increase to wages and conditions, comprising of a 2.53 per cent wage increase and a 0.5 per cent superannuation increase.”

The payment was in addition to the one-off $300 payment for health workers during the pandemic.

The strike action is a new sign of trouble for the Perrottet government which has recently threatened court action against the rail union due to their long running standoff.