Elderly patients waiting hours for assistance to go to the toilet, post-op patients waiting hours for pain relief, patients not getting their meals and ambulances not being able to offload critical patients.
All because there is a severe shortage of nurses in our hospitals.
A mandated minimum number of nurses on wards saves lives and benefits the wellbeing and safety of nurses, midwives and patients.
In Qld where ratios are mandated by law, hundreds of millions of dollars have been saved in the budget, while lives have been saved and ED waiting times reduced.
Our nurses and midwives are at breaking point.
We need safe nurse and midwife to patient ratios now.