Trevor Bason has become accustomed to exhaustion.
"We've gotten used to the practise of being tired, being worn out," the Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) nurse said.
Speaking as a representative of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), Mr Bason said long shifts were currently pushing union members to the brink at RDH, which earlier this month declared its fourth code yellow this year.
"It takes a toll, it's cumulative and leads to burnout," he said.
The Northern Territory is currently 130 full-time equivalent nurses short across hospitals, primary health centres and mental health services, despite NT Health saying 171 new nurses have started this year.
One former emergency department nurse, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they quit in part due to workplace anxiety created by the staffing deficit.
"You're stressed that you weren't providing the care that a person needed at the time," they said.
"You're stressed that you're so short for time, that you could potentially be missing something that was life-threatening.
"There was many times that you'd walk away saying, 'I wish I could have done better', but have to settle with what you can, with the resources and the time that you've got."
Staff retention isn't only a problem for NT Health. A report by McKinsey consultants, published in September, revealed one-in-five nurses across Australia plan to leave their role within 12 months.
According to ANMF NT branch secretary Cath Hatcher, the current workload for nurses is unsustainable, and will lead to more departures if not fixed.
"They're doing double shifts, they're doing extra shifts on their days off," Ms Hatcher said.
"They're not getting that recuperation on their days off and that downtime. They're not having a good work-life balance."
Nursing students facing course delays
Charles Darwin University (CDU) is responsible for training nurses in the Northern Territory.
But over the last few years, the university says a "high number" of territory-based nursing students haven't graduated when they should have.
"I was delayed by eight months from when I expected to finish, to when I actually finished," former student Lucy Dickson said.
Ms Dickson's story is a familiar one for current students, too. CDU vice-chancellor Scott Bowman said 170 were behind schedule due to "a backlog of clinical placements".
To finish a bachelor of nursing degree, 880 hours of supervised clinical placements must be completed across three years.
"Our second-year … and third-year students … we're looking for placements for them," he said. "Some of them are six months, 12 months behind getting their placements."
The ABC has spoken to several students who claim the university's communication about their individual circumstances has been poor.
"I do apologise if students have had problems contacting us and … I can see their frustration that they came to us, they want to work as nurses," Mr Bowman said.
"But I can guarantee them that our nursing team is just as frustrated.
"They're just working night and day to try and find these placements, ringing around hospitals, other aged care facilities to try and get places."
'If we had our time again, we wouldn't take so many students'
The placement backlog is due to former COVID restrictions which restricted access to health facilities, according to CDU.
Mr Bowman — who started as vice-chancellor in 2021 — said the university had also enrolled too many students.
The normal yearly intake quota is about 900 nursing students, of which around 200 come from the territory.
CDU has had to cap enrolments at 100 for 2023, following an intervention from the regulatory body, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Accreditation Council.
"Did the regulator force us [to cap enrolments]? I guess, yes, because they said that's how many we could take," Mr Bowman said.
"If you think about those early years of the pandemic 2020, maybe 2021 … if we had our time again, we wouldn't take so many students.
"We wouldn't have had such a problem catching up."
Workforce deficit impacting mental health
For nurses already working in the territory, including Mr Bason, getting more nurses into the system as soon as possible is crucial.
"Ideally, we should work at the hospital, arrive at X time, leave at Y time," Mr Bason said.
"And when we leave at Y time, we shouldn't have to take work home with us.
"It's impacting on the wellness of ourselves and our family."
Health Minister Natasha Fyles said the NT government had "multiple strategies" to manage the nurse shortage.
"This includes active recruitment campaigns, redeploying staff as required, employing additional aboriginal health practitioners and increasing outreach services," she said.
