An emergency department nurse has told of the stress she and others are facing in Albury hospital's casualty ward. or signup to continue reading Leah Edwards was speaking to the media, in front of her colleagues, after nurses walked off the job at the hospital on Thursday afternoon as part of ongoing industrial action aimed at securing a better pay deal. "The staff are certainly feeling the pressure, we certainly don't have enough beds to cater to the community," Ms Edwards said.
"We often have several patients in the waiting room who need to be on beds and the issue is we don't have patient flow, so there's this immense amount of pressure on the nurses." The nurses walked off the job at 2pm for an hour with NSW Nurses and Midwives Association Albury hospital branch president Geoff Hudson saying the action was the most significant in "This is the biggest turnout we've ever had, nearly 160 nurses have walked off the job today," Mr Hudson said. "We've turned out because enough is enough, we deserve more than what we're getting.
" The NSW government has offered a 9.5 per cent pay rise plus 1 per cent superannuation over three years, but the nurses' union is seeking a 15 per cent jump. Mr Hudson said the timing of the industrial action ensured patients were not without nurses as two shifts overlapped.
"The reason why we've held this strike today during the double staffing period is because we know that we can leave a minimum safe number of staff on board so there will be no threat.