IN 25 years of nursing, Kylie Goodwin had never witnessed a patient having to wait four days in the emergency department for a bed.
She has now.
The president of the Maitland Hospital branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association (NSWNMA) described the new $470 million hospital as "make up" covering a broken, ugly system.
Nurses and midwives who walked out after finishing the night shift at Maitland Hospital on Thursday had tears in their eyes as they spoke of needing to "psyche up" to go to work in what had become a "war zone".
They have been treating patients in waiting rooms, hospital corridors and family rooms as the number of people coming through the doors outweighs the number being discharged. They said it means patients are waiting up to 15 hours in the emergency department (ED) to see a doctor.
"We are not coping, we are drowning," Ms Goodwin said.
NSWNMA Maitland branch delegate Monique Murray said this week a patient had spent 101 hours in the ED waiting for a bed.
"That's four days the patient had to be in the ED - which is not equipped for admitted patients - because they can't be moved to a ward," she said. "We have ambulance officers waiting one or two hours to offload patients, which in turn takes an ambulance off the road because they are stuck in a hospital system that is failing their patients."
Ms Murray said in the past week, the percentage of patients being admitted within eight hours of arrival dropped to 21 per cent.
"At the old hospital, we were at 80 per cent. That is huge," she said.
Ms Murray said at least one nurse in the ED was working a 1pm to 7.15am shift every day, but it was often more.
"Two months ago we had three staff members do a double shift in a week, and all three of them had a car accident on the way home from work," she said. "This is about patient safety, it's about staff safety. If they are doing 18-hour shifts and driving home and having car accidents, that to me is a huge red flag. Something needs to be done."
NSWNMA members said there had recently been seven resignations in one ward within a week at the hospital. Senior nurses who recently resigned were replaced with inexperienced nurses "fresh out of uni".
"It's a massive risk for something to go wrong," Ms Goodwin said. "It's not an if, it's a when. We have patients coming in with huge co-morbidities that require more care than they did when nursing hours were implemented. The system is broken, it needs to be fixed."
They are calling for the NSW government to mandate safer nurse-to-patient ratios.
A Hunter New England Health spokesperson said there had been an increase in the number of people attending the hospital ED, and that as of August 10, 28 nurses and midwives were in isolation due to COVID-19, other winter illnesses, or caring responsibilities.
"There has also been a rise in complex NDIS and aged care patients spending longer in hospital as they await discharge to aged care facilities or disability services," she said.
"To address some of the challenges... we've recruited over 20 nurses to staff additional beds, transferred hundreds of elective surgeries to our private partners, and increased virtual medical coverage to support other local hospitals.
"We constantly review our operations, taking into consideration workforce requirements and the availability of additional beds that can be surged when required.
"We work very hard to avoid asking staff to do overtime, using casuals and agency staff to fill deficits, and redeploying staff around the hospital to areas with the highest need. The unprecedented demand this winter has meant that in some cases we have had to request overtime from staff to ensure we can continue to provide high quality care to our patients."
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