Nurses are voting on further strike action as overtime hours at Tamworth hospital explode

NSW Nurses and Midwives Association branch secretary Jill Telfer, said the hospital's nurses and midwives alone were asked to work hundreds of double shifts in just the month of July alone.

She said it was evidence of an escalating staffing crisis, which is grinding nurses down, month after month.

"It's a lot of overtime, that's the honest truth," she said.

"You've got to start asking is it safe to have nurses that exhausted doing that much overtime?"

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Ms Telfer said there had been more than 800 hours of overtime worked in the hospital's emergency department alone, and she expected the numbers for August to be about the same. It's the most she's ever seen.

She blamed widespread vacancies on top of COVID-19 infections for the need for scores of staff to do double shifts.

A Hunter New England Health spokesperson said the hospital was facing "unprecedented demand" during the winter months.

Hospital data revealed there had been a major increase in presentations at the hospital in 2022, with a 41.5 per cent increase in presentations at the emergency department.

Meanwhile, many staff have been furloughed due to winter illnesses, the spokesperson said.

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"We work very hard to avoid asking staff to do overtime, using casuals and agency staff to fill vacancies, and redeploying staff around the hospital to areas with the highest need," he said.

"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.

"We constantly review our operations, taking into consideration workforce requirements and the availability of additional beds that can be surged when required.

"We thank our staff for their incredible efforts to keep the community safe. The work they have done - and continue to do - to care for the people of the Hunter and New England regions is remarkable."

The service is operating with skeleton staff with a full house, Ms Telfer said.

"Overtime at this stage is voluntary, but yes they can require you to work back; it's in our award," she said.

"Staff do it, not because of the money, they actually do it because they're concerned for their patients and they're concerned for their colleagues.

"Because if you don't do that double shift, you know that next shift is being left critically short-staffed."

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The nurses union has been raising the alarm about staff shortages all year.

Ms Telfer told the Leader in May that bed block was forcing the hospital to discharge patients, and open a new ward, predicting that winter would bring an even more significant wave of patients.

She said the amount of overtime has been building up all year and staff are "burned out" and "exhausted" by the extra work.

Bureau of Health Information shows the Tamworth hospital recorded the worst emergency department statistics in the Hunter New England Local Health District for the three months to June. Barely half of emergency department patients started treatment on time.

Assistant general secretary Michael Whaites said the union is voting this week whether to take a fourth round of industrial action in September.

"Given the anger on the ground I'd b very surprised if it's anything but a resounding 'yes' to action," he said.

Among other objectives, the union hopes to force the government to undertake meaningful negotiation for staff-to-patient ratios, which they see as the solution for the staffing crisis.

The union walked off the job in March in their first statewide day-long strike action in decades.

Hunter New England Health increased its workforce by an additional 1,956 full-time equivalent staff in the last decade, an increase of 18.6 per cent including 482 more doctors, 1,042 more nurses and midwives and 187 more allied health staff.

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