Hunter nurses 'rally for ratios' in Civic Park as part of state-wide strikes

"Members of my branch have been slapped, punched, kicked, spat on, strangled and even sexually assaulted in the workplace," secretary of the Maitland Mental Health branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA), Laurel Kibble said in an impassioned speech.

"We've been bruised, lost teeth, broken bones and suffer psychological distress including nightmares and panic attacks around coming to work.

"We entered this profession to try and help people through the most challenging periods of their lives. But we cannot do that if we are not given the resources that we need to keep both ourselves and our patients safe."

The NSWNMA is calling for the implementation of minimum ratios at one nurse to four patients on main hospital floors with one nurse to three patients in emergency departments. The union is also asking that babies be considered standalone patients for the purpose of ratios.

A fair pay rise - above the 2.5 per cent offered by the government - is also being called for, along with no changes to COVID-19 workers compensation.

The government is currently seeking to scrap an automatic presumption under workers' compensation rules which means essential workers will have to prove they caught COVID-19 on the job to access compensation.

"In all honesty I do not feel proud to be a nurse today. I became a nurse because I wanted to serve my community. I wanted to transform people's lives," Ms Kibble said.

"So every time I have to fob a patient off because I'm too busy to do my job and listen to them, my heart breaks.

"When we are given the opportunity to know our patients well, we recognise early warning signs to intervene before a patient is unwell enough that they or we are at risk."

The rally coincided with state-wide strikes impacting around 150 public hospitals from 7am on Tuesday.

"We have 23 branches from the Hunter New England region supporting us here today," NSWNMA delegate for the John Hunter Hospital and John Hunter Children's Hospital branch Joanne Patterson told the Newcastle Herald at the rally.

Of the region's 23 branches involved in the action, Belmont, James Fletcher, John Hunter, Maitland and Muswellbrook hospitals committed for a full 24 hours strike. A skeleton staff remained in hospitals to ensure patient safety.

The strike came in defiance of a ruling by the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) on Monday, ordering the union to refrain from any industrial action.

"It's made us more determined. We are over it. They rely on us backing down because we are loyal to our patients and we don't want to see anyone hurt," Ms Patterson said.

"We are more worried about people dying on our shift than what they [the IRC] might do to us.

"This government has had so many opportunities to make this better and they have ignored us."

Thousands of nurses also rallied outside NSW Parliament House to take their message to MPs as they returned to parliament for the first sitting day of the year.

Last week, Premier Dominic Perrottet said patient ratios the union is calling for aren't effective.

"The advice that I've received is that there is substantive challenges to that and it hasn't actually worked so well in other states," he said.

"Let's not play politics. We don't want to get back to the old union games."

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