Dubbo's Karen Kneale, Joanne Smith speak about working in health sector during COVID-19 pandemic

But on Tuesday afternoon, her rostered day-off after five days on various shifts at the hospital on Myall Street, she joined hundreds of colleagues from across the state in an online protest action over workloads.

Emma - not her real name - said the workloads had been made even worse because there were many dissatisfied nurses who had left the profession.

The pay rise and extra money, a thank-you reward for helping save people's lives during the pandemic is a boon to her budget as she is due for annual leave in November. But on top of the incentive, Emma, who has worked at the hospital for 10 years, believes their working conditions need improvement to retain staff.

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"If we get staff-to-patient ratios in, it would be a lot better. At the moment there's not enough staff around...we've got a lot of people who left or on leave or with COVID and flu..we need the ratios to stop nurses burning out," she said.

The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, with over 74,000 members, accused the health department of ignoring their pleas for acceptable staff-to-patient ratios for every shift because the current daily conditions on the hospital floor place their patients' lives in peril.

Emma said they proposed to have one nurse for every three patients in emergency departments, and one nurse for every five patients in wards, particularly in the "maternity ladies" section where babies are still not counted as patients.

"ED is the busiest but in saying that, other wards are busy as well as nurses having seven to eight patients to handle during the day. They're mostly heavy[complex] patients, sicker, and need more care," she said.

"Because every ward is busy every day, if one ward is down of people because they're off sick, they pinched from other wards.

"I'm not sure how many are off sick at the moment but there are so many of us now doing double shifts to cover for people on leave or off with different cases."

Emma said she is fortunate her children have grown but for other nurses and midwives who try to balance work and family life, as well as personal well-being, while under pressure to work extra hours to help their employer, "they just have to make it work."

Karen Kneale just turned 55. She has been part of the nursing staff at Dubbo working at hospitals and private health services for the last 12 years but for failing to get her COVID-19 booster vaccine for the third time due to health complications, she lost a well-paying job.

"My work and the service I was in are absolutely fantastic...but I became so sick [after two vaccines] I couldn't go on. They [my employer] said to me 'no hard feelings'...and they didn't push me to get a third shot and that was all," Ms Kneale said.

Since April this year, she has been looking for work in various fields earning an hourly rate much less than her previous earnings as a health care staff in aged care services.

Every staff in health services has been required to be vaccinated and it included Ms Kneale's type of work looking after elderly residents in their own homes around Dubbo and nearby towns during the pandemic.

"Every day, we would drive around the towns and take care of people in their homes..we ring up before entering their homes to ask if they have cough or cold symptoms [as part of COVID precautions]...we've watched them stuck in their homes so we go around getting their medications and doing their shopping...it was very stressful in the last two years of the pandemic," Ms Kneale.

As a qualified and licensed sonographer, Joanne Smith, was among the health services staff terminated for refusing to conform to the mandatory COVID vaccine.

She was a member of the Health Services Union but last September, after 29 years in the service, and 15 years spent at Dubbo Hospital, she was let go under the Public Health Order implemented by the health department.

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"The union said they support people to make their own choice [about the vaccine] but also supports the vaccine policy. They even run a lottery to make people conform. After vaccination, you receive a lottery ticket and get into a draw to win $1,000...I didn't look into it.

Ms Smith said she was among up to 60 staff from various public sector roles in the district who lost their jobs for not following the vaccination policy, but of this number, some "may have caved in" and went for vaccination to get back to work.

She and others received termination payouts but if the vaccination mandate would end, she might consider returning to her career as a shortage of qualified staff is getting worse in the region.

"They found no one locally is qualified so they're hiring locums to cover for our jobs. Locums cover for short-staffing such as maternity leaves. They have girls there now working until Christmas and then they may have someone else to do one month or so but locums don't have a permanent place of work.

"I really don't know who caved in because others just have to get it [vaccination] because they need their jobs."

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