Nurses and midwives to protest at Liverpool Hospital

Nurses will protest at a Sydney hospital to demand pandemic payments amid warnings of a mass burnout of health staff.

Nurses and midwives are demanding pandemic payments and better working conditions to prevent a mass burnout of hospital staff.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association has voted to condemn the state government’s pandemic management and workers are planning a protest outside Liverpool Hospital in Sydney on Thursday.

“Well before the pandemic, nurses and midwives in NSW have been working understaffed and unsupported,” NSWNMA acting general secretary Shaye Candish said.

“This peak has relied on our members working excessive overtime to keep hospitals running and staff are burning out.”

Blacktown Hospital nurses and midwives at earlier strike action in 2020 over chronic understaffing.

NSWNMA-affiliated nurses pictured at the earlier strike action at Blacktown Hospital.

Ms Candish said health staff were at a breaking point and the possibility of burning out workers would leave the state vulnerable to the next coronavirus wave.

The NSWNMA has supported calls for a Covid-19 allowance payment for staff and for nurses and midwives to access special leave when they test positive to the disease.

“It should never have come to this,“ Ms Candish said.

“For years, nurses and midwives have been calling on the NSW government to increase staffing to address systemic problems.

“The Premier must urgently step in and commit to staffing improvements through safer nurse-to-patient ratios to ensure we have more resilience in our healthcare system into the future.”

NSW Health has been contacted for comment.

Blacktown Hospital. Unions claim staff at NSW hospitals are burning out.

Originally published as Nurses and midwives to protest at Liverpool Hospital