An electronic petition signed by almost 40,000 people calling on the state government to deliver a fair pay rise for public sector nurses and midwives will be debated in the NSW Parliament today.
The e-petition, created by NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) member Dustin Levick, gained more than 20,000 signatures in four days and broke the record for the fastest-growing Legislative Assembly petition.
A member of the NSWNMA Air Ambulance branch, Mr Levick said achieving interstate pay parity was essential for attracting and retaining nurses and midwives in NSW to ensure safe, quality patient care.
“I cannot sit by and watch the quality of care continue to deteriorate, and it has deteriorated significantly, because we cannot attract nurses and midwives to NSW. At the end of the day the public pays the price of the government’s inaction in the form of deteriorating care in our public hospitals,” Mr Levick said.
“I started the petition so the government can hear from their community. The community clearly wants the government to invest in their health system, and that means investing in their nurses and midwives.
“I am advocating for the younger nurses and midwives who simply cannot make ends meet on their salary. Some have to live with their parents until mid-career because they cannot afford to live in NSW on what they are paid.
“We will not stop fighting this fight until the government listens. Nurses know what patients need and we cannot give it to them in this failing system.”
NSWNMA General Secretary, Shaye Candish, applauded Dustin for garnering community support and highlighting the plight of nurses and midwives.
“The Minns Labor government is choosing to ignore and turn its back on the nursing and midwifery workforce in NSW. We know staffing shortages are being driven by low wages in this state, yet the government is refusing to find a way to pay nurses and midwives a competitive wage,” said Ms Candish.
“We’re seeing increasing strain and stress on our hospitals. The latest Bureau of Health Information quarterly report released yesterday, shows there were more than 15,000 additional ED attendances between October and December last year, compared to the previous quarter. Triage category 2 and 3 presentations both increased across the state, and there was a 6% rise in the number of patients who left an ED before completing treatment.
“It’s clear our hospitals are operating in overdrive, and nurses and midwives are at the forefront of this, trying to treat patients in a timely manner while constantly understaffed and under-resourced. This government must fix this urgently – the patients of NSW deserve nothing less.”
