Health Minister Brad Hazzard has hit back at the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association's campaign to increase nurse to patient ratios in the state's hospitals.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
It followed rallies at Singleton and Maitland on Wednesday where nurses and midwives called on the major parties to commit to higher nurse to ratios.
Victoria and Queensland already have mandatory nurse to patient ratios, however, NSW does not.
Hunter nurses have asked candidates to state their position on nurse to patient ratios.
"So far the major parties haven't done anything for regional areas. The Labor Party has pledged to support the nurses ratios campaign. The Liberal Party is not supporting the nurses with the ratios campaign," Midwife and Singleton branch secretary of the Nurses and Midwives Association Janine Moffitt said.
Ms Moffit said nurse-patient ratios of four to one for surgical and medical and three to one emergency were needed.
"It's very important for our patients to be given the best quality care and when you haven't got the proper ratios people miss out. When I work in the West Wing as a surgical nurse sometimes you have nine or 10 patients for one nurse," she said.
"Most of those people are on IV antibiotics or Schedule 8 drugs which require two people to go the cupboard to get them and two people to go to the bedside to give that medication. It's very hard when you have one nurse with eight patients, we need one to four."
"The current nurse-patient ratio system was introduced with the support of the Nurses and Midwives Association in 2010 when Labor was in government," Health Minister Brad Hazzard told the Newcastle Herald on Wednesday.
"The real issue is not the nurse-patient ratio system but the number of nurses."
The state government recently committed to employing an extra 5000 nurses and midwives over the next four years.
The Newcastle Herald