Every intensive care patient in Victorian hospitals will have a dedicated nurse on stand-by 24 hours a day under long-awaited changes.
The new ratios were promised by Labor in the lead up to the 2022 election, with the Victorian government finally moving to legislate the reforms on Tuesday.
It means every occupied intensive care unit bed in the state will have a dedicated nurse assigned to it at all times.
A team leader and liaison nurse will also become a requirement for intensive care units.
Other changes include lowering midwife-to-patient ratios in postnatal and antenatal wards on night shifts from 1:6 to 1:4 and strengthening ratios in resuscitation cubicles in emergency departments during morning shifts.
Nurse-to-patient and midwife-to-patient ratios were first introduced in 2000, with Victoria becoming the first state to enshrine them into law in 2015.
The latest changes were meant to be put to parliament in 2023 but there was a delay in drafting them, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation Victorian branch secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said.
Funds to implement the new ratios were used to boost nurses' pay, with the workforce agreeing to a 28.5 per cent wage increase over four years in June.
"We did get the money and it did go into the pool to help pay for the (20)24-28 enterprise agreement," Ms Fitzpatrick told reporters.
Union members undertook protected industrial action for 51 days after initially knocking back an in-principle agreement in May.
Ms Fitzpatrick said retention rather than recruitment was the biggest issue confronting the workforce.
Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas was confident the health system would have enough staff to cope with the ratio tweaks and vowed to track their implementation.
"We have an implementation plan with dates attached to that," she said.
Some $101.3 million has been budgeted to help health services hire and roster additional nurses and midwives to meet the new ratios.
