Critically understaffed public hospitals in New South Wales are planning to fly in nurses from overseas, a leaked memo reveals, as managers beg staff to cancel leave and take on extra shifts amid surging Covid cases.
It comes as a state health policy change will allow health workers who are close contacts to be recalled to their jobs, the Guardian understands, before completing their seven-day isolation period, if they are considered essential. More than 2,000 health workers are currently isolating due to Covid exposure.
At St George hospital in Sydney’s south, the burden of increased hospital presentations and isolation orders was laid bare in a grim end-of-year email sent to all nursing staff, pleading for them to cancel leave.
The internal email, obtained by Guardian Australia, warns the hospital “can’t seem to keep up with the exposures and positive staff”, despite concerted efforts to source nurses.
“We have commenced the process for overseas recruitment,” the email stated.
The last resort had been taken after managers approached more than seven local nursing and midwifery labour agencies, an effort which yielded just one additional registered nurse.
Additionally, the hospital had approached private hospitals for workers and pulled back secondments, but had not been able to staff its wards sufficiently.
“Across the facility, the patients numbers in the departments are unprecedented,” the email stated, noting the hospital had been forced to reopen its second Covid ward again.
“It doesn’t really seem quite right to be wishing a happy new year,” the email said.
The NSW Nurses and Midwives Association general secretary, Brett Holmes, said hospitals were going to “extraordinary lengths” and managers were “turning themselves inside out trying to find staff”. “Overseas recruitment is a glimmer of hope right now,” he said.
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At St Vincent’s hospital in Sydney’s east, the facility’s executive director, Kevin Luong, was reported to have sent an email to staff on Thursday, warning the hospital was in an “extremely vulnerable” position.
“Whilst we are trying our best to work around this, we are beginning to run out of options to maintain safe nursing staffing levels,” the email said, according to the ABC.
Guardian Australia has seen an email sent to St Vincent’s staff pleading for nurses to work shifts on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, offering a $250 bonus on top of usual penalties as an incentive to work. The offer was extended for nurses in admin roles.
“Our current staffing vacancies in nursing is unprecedented and at crisis level,” the email said.
The internal email also explained the hospital was “changing our model of care” to focus on emergency department presentations and ICU patients in the first instance. The email urged any nurses who had patients who could be suitable for discharge to do so as soon as possible.
Guardian Australia has also been told of concerning staffing ratios in the emergency department at the Royal Prince Alfred hospital in inner-Sydney, as well as at various hospitals across the city.
On Friday, NSW’s Covid outbreak became one of the fastest growing in the world, with daily cases almost doubling to 21,151 on New Year’s Eve. Six people died with Covid.
Hospitalisations in NSW grew to 832 on Friday, having more than doubled in the week since 382 were in hospitals the previous Friday. Intensive care hospitalisations were rising steadily, with 69 people in ICU beds – 39 of whom were unvaccinated.
A spokeswoman for the South Eastern Sydney local health district confirmed it had “approached several nursing agencies to recruit additional staff to join our healthcare team”, and that it was “standard practice” for an LHD to organise its own staffing, including choosing to recruit internationally.
Earlier, the premier, Dominic Perrottet, claimed his state’s health system “remains strong”, and said the national close contact definition changes agreed to on Thursday would “put downward pressure in that space”.
“We have the best health system in the country, arguably the best in the world, and that is because of years of investment,” he said.
“We’ve seen a significant increase in case numbers, but what is pleasing is that our health system remains strong,” Perrottet said.
However, Holmes said union members were “copping abuse” because patients were presenting to hospital expecting a smoother experience because of how Perrottet was describing hospital pressure.
“Patients and family members are presenting to hospital expecting a robust, high-functioning health system and become extremely agitated when they experience the widespread staffing crisis first-hand,” he said.
“Our members want the NSW premier and health minister to admit the current situation in our hospitals is dire and call on the public not to abuse health staff as the system struggles under increased demand,” Holmes said.
When asked by Guardian Australia how current pressures in NSW hospitals compared with the worst of the Delta outbreak, Holmes said “I think it’s there now”, noting that during lockdown, presentations for illnesses from car accidents and other life events diminished, but were occurring now.
“We’re now fully open, all of those normal everyday presentations are still occurring, and yet we’re still seeing large numbers of patients coming into the health system with Covid – as a result of this government’s decision to let it rip,” Holmes said.
Holmes said the current issues in hospitals were a combination of a surge in Covid cases, combined with Covid exposures forcing staff into isolation.
“Our members are going above and beyond, shift after shift. Despite everything that is being thrown their way. Enough is enough. The government cannot continue piling more upon nurses and midwives and ignore the conditions they are dealing with.”
The chief health officer, Kerry Chant, noted that while hospitalisations had more than doubled in a week, some of those recorded in the hospitalisation figure were in hospital for other reasons, and that this phenomenon was occurring given the extent of the spread of Omicron.
The NSW Ambulance commissioner, Dominic Morgan, also appeared at the premier’s Covid update on Friday and warned residents, even those who are Covid-positive, to reserve calling 000 for serious symptoms and illness.
He said one in three people who called ambulances currently were not deemed high enough priority for transport to hospital, and said people calling for PCR results and other non-emergencies “tie up our emergency medical call takers and divert us away from the cardiac arrests, the chokings, the drownings”.
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