Francesca Costin, George Joseph and Detsy Halton encouraged drivers to honk insupport outside Dandenong Hospital during a four-hour work stoppage on Tuesday. 77824
By Nicole Williams
STOPPING work each day to fight for patient care is heartbreaking for Dandenong Hospital theatre nurse Natascha Mazurek.
Ms Mazurek is one of thousands of nurses around Victoria taking part in rolling four-hour stoppages in their fight with the government over nurse to patient ratios, pay and work conditions.
“I walked out with my fellow colleagues on Friday morning and have been there every day since then,” she said.
“It heartbreaking, it’s absolutely heartbreaking.
“Not one of us wants to take this action, but there is no other way to get the message across.”
Each nurse who stops work is docked four hours pay and Ms Mazurek said it was taking a toll.
“There are nurses who are really going through a tough time at the moment,” she said.
“It really is a heartbreaking decision for us, but it needs to come to a head.”
The Pakenham nurse, who has worked at Dandenong Hospital for three-and-a-half years, said they were leaving enough nurses on the wards to cover the ratios proposed by the government.
“It lets people know, who have never worked with ratios before, what we’re dealing with,” she said.
“At the end of the day, it is placing pressure on the nurses left behind and doubling patient loads.”
With nurses lining up outside the hospital, along Stud Road and at Dandenong Market, Ms Mazurek and the other nurses are buoyed by the support shown by the community.
“The community support brings it all to a head, it has been amazing.”
Like many of her fellow nurses, Ms Mazurek is no longer fighting for pay increases.
“Unfortunately, the word ‘pay’ comes into the mix all the time, and to begin with we were seeking a pay rise, but now it is insignificant and most nurses who I speak to don’t care abut the pay rise anymore,” she said.
“We just want to keep nurse-to-patient ratios, which make it a manageable working load on most days, and not to have unregistered health care assistants, who would be replacing us, but we would be responsible for.”
