NSW: Nurses continue pay campaign

AAP General News (Australia)
08-30-2001
NSW: Nurses continue pay campaign

More than 150 nurses from Sydney's largest trauma hospital walked off the job today
in an ongoing union campaign for improved wages.

The New South Wales Nurses Association today targeted St Vincent's hospital in its
public campaign for a pay increase to help stem a state-wide shortage of nurses.

The nurses from St Vincent's were expected to stopwork for two-hours but association
secretary SANDRA MOAIT says staffing shortages at the hospital are so severe nurses opted
to protest during their lunch break.

She said almost 90 of St Vincents' 860 full-time-equivalent nurse positions were being
covered by casual or agency nurses or working overtime.

Ms MOAIT says at every hospital in the state the staffing shortages are at critical levels.

She says the nurses at St Vincent's decided to have a lunch time rally because they
are so short-staffed anything more than that would impact on patient care.





Nurses from St George Hospital in Kogarah in Sydney's south are expected to stage a
two-hour stopwork tomorrow.

AAP RTV nd/arb/jh/rp

KEYWORD: NURSES NSW (SYDNEY)

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