Moruya members of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association and patients rallied on Wednesday, December 19 to call for better staff-to-patient ratios.

In a vocal protest held across the road from the hospital, they demanded a one-to-three nurse-to-patient ratio and parity with their city peers.

Nurses said they were at “breaking point”, particularly in the emergency department, and patient care was suffering.

One recent patient described how another patient, apparently under the influence of the drug ice, had required the undivided attention of one nurse “or that person would have torn up the emergency department”.

“I felt so sorry for the nurse,” the patient said.

Moruya branch president Sam Buckley said trauma patients and those needing CT scans who were transferred to Moruya added to the load, as did holidaymakers.

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“It is compounding the already busy department and making it unsafe,” Ms Buckley said.

“All of the surgical patients from the Bay are sent down here for a CT scan and surgical review.

“It takes two hours, minimum, for our CT scans to be reported on and those patients are left in our emergency department, without a nurse, for up to two hours.

“With our already busy department, we are not able to check on them, do observations, give pain relief. We have a campaigned for a designated CT nurse and that has not happened.

“We are doing canulas for the CT, we are doing contrast checks.

“We have two nurses, one working in isolation; triage is separate to the back of the department.

“You can't see both areas, so your triage nurse can't see that the nurse out the back has 12 patients, two deteriorating, and you are stuck by yourself until you can get help.

Union member Mary Hropic, who spoke at the rally, said medical patients were also transferred to Moruya for review.

“They have either deteriorated or they (staff) are concerned and they have ended up staying in our department,” she said.

“We don't mind caring for those patients, but we need to be staffed accordingly.”

Ms Buckley said they were “excited” the NSW government had committed $150 million to build a Eurobodalla Shire hospital, “but we need help now”

“We are at breaking point. It is not safe, the nurses are burnt out. We want to do better.”

She described members finishing their shifts worried about patients.

“You are going home unsatisfied at the end of the day and worried. You are ringing back in, saying 'did I do that?;' 'I forgot to mention this', because you are so busy.

“There is so much stuff going on that you are missing the basic care that we are trained to do.

“People are not getting pain relief. People are sitting on chairs in pain because we simply have no space.”

Another union member said some oncology patients and those with chest pain were not seen quickly enough.

“We are just not getting to those patients quick enough,” she said.

“The care is not timely.”

A former patient transferred from Batemans Bay in recent months described the effect on staff and other patients of someone apparently under the influence of ice.

“The nurse had to be with that person the whole time,” she said.

“I was fine, but if you were having an infarction (heart) or someone needed resuscitation, that person would have torn up the emergency department. 

“I felt so sorry for the nurse. They need more staff.”

The patient criticised the triage system.

“Instead of going to a triage nurse, the patient fills out information, someone takes that information into the nurse who is already looking after patients, to triage them off a piece of paper.

“Triage is all about reviewing the patients when you see them. You can't do that off a piece of paper, while you are looking after other patients.”