"Value us" was the appeal when Parkes members of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association rallied in the CBD, raising awareness of their call for a pay rise as part of State-wide 24 hour industrial action.

Seventeen members of the local branch of the Association were part of the action, calling on locals to petition Premier Chris Minns to give nurses a 15 per cent pay rise.

The NSWNMA announced the strike action last week, and confirmed minimal, life-preserving staffing would be maintained in public hospitals and health services.

Parkes association members said they were driven to action by care and concern.

“We are doing this because we all live in this community, we care for this community and we have serious concerns that the way the NSW Health system is going will mean we cannot have a functioning hospital in the future unless we make some changes now,” Parkes branch members said.

“It’s about maintaining the profession – and it is a great profession.”

This community is certainly not alone in dealing with professional shortages but that leaves our nurses to working overtime or staying back for hours after their shift.

Nurses working short staffed or working overtime are burning out, they warn, or going to states where the pay and conditions are better.

Parkes branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association Tracy Boney said a pay rise would go a long way to retaining crucial staff.

“We care about our patients, we want better for them,” Tracy said.

“There are times we work short, which is not fair to the patients.”

NSW Health Minister Ryan Park issued a statement ahead of the strike action, saying the Government remain at the negotiating table and ready to continue to work in good faith.

He said improvements had been made, in partnership with the Association and NSW, since the change of government, including:

Nurse retention levels reaching pre-COVID levels - to 93.6 per cent over the past 12 months;

Investing heavily in the workforce - including $572 million to save the jobs of 1,112 whose positions were unfunded from 1 July 2024;

Rolling out Safe Staffing Levels - implementation is now commencing across 16 of our Emergency Departments across metropolitan and regional NSW;

An increase in the nursing workforce by over 2,000 FTE to over 56,000 FTE since taking office; and

Removing the wages cap, with a 4.5 per cent wage increase agreed in 2023.