South coast nurses fell like ‘pawns’ as Covid cases surge

Record Covid case numbers have come at an immense physical and emotional cost for south coast nurses, with many being forced off the job by difficult working conditions and cancelled leave.

South coast hospitals are struggling to manage a record surge in Covid patients, with nurses warning the health system is “on the brink of collapse”.

There were 915 new cases recorded in the Illawarra-Shoalhaven area on Friday, 505 of which were in the Wollongong area.

Nurses at Wollongong Hospital said the only reason the hospital was coping with the increase in patients was because many nursing staff were being asked to work overtime and on their days off.

A shortfall in nurses across the region has meant staff have had to work in increasing difficult conditions, being left unable to stop to drink water or use the bathroom, according to the secretary of the Wollongong Hospital NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, Genevieve Stone.

Speaking on behalf of the union, Ms Stone said nurses have had leave cancelled or denied, despite many staff suffering from unprecedented burnout and changing rules that put nurses at a greater risk of contracting Covid.

“We all feel very despondent,” she said.

“Nurses are working overtime out of a worry that our colleagues will be short-staffed, or that patient safety might be impaired.

“We’re also concerned about working as casual contacts. Even if we have someone at home that has Covid, we’re still expected to work.

“The feeling among nursing staff is we’re just pawns, and that we’re not really respected.”

The crisis comes after what nurses said were a difficult few years for staff, with some complaining their calls on the State Government to increase nurse numbers had been ignored.

While the number of Covid patients being cared for at the South East Regional Hospital in Bega is significantly lower than elsewhere in the state, the president of the hospital’s NSWNMA branch, Diane Lang, feared they would soon rise, exacerbating historic staff shortages.

“We were working with a minimum number of nurses before Covid happened,” she said on behalf of the union.

“We’ve lost so many staff over the last few years, and I just don’t know what we’re going to do now that the hospital admissions are increasing.

“We’re already having many leave who can’t physically do it anymore, and the skilled staff that we need are gone.”

Nursing staff at the South East Regional Hospital in Bega are fed up with staff shortages.

Ms Lang fears many more staff will leave once the pandemic had ended.

She claimed the State Government had its “head in the sand.”

“They say they’ve hired thousands of more nurses over the last few years, but I don’t see them in the wards,” she said.

“We need the government to have listened to us years ago and to have actually introduced nurse ratios, because that would have given us more nurses to fall back on.

“We have been working short staffed, and It‘s only through the goodwill of the nurses that have been working, that this hospital has been able to survive.

“But we’re getting to the point that we’re just going to be unwell and not fit to work.”

The Illawarra-Shoalhaven and South Coast Local Health Districts have been contacted for comment, but did not reply in time for this article.