The petition was presented at Thursday night’s community meeting at the Tamworth Services Club, where a panel of local nurses and midwives outlined their concerns about what they say are chronic staff shortages in the emergency and maternity departments of Tamworth hospital.

The petition states Hunter New England Health “has a duty of care to the people of Tamworth and the New England and North West of NSW to deliver safe patient care ... and to ensure a safe work environment for all staff”.

Coral Levett, the president of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, moderated Thursday night’s meeting, which was attended by about 100 people.

Local association branch secretary Jill Telfer thanked the community for their support to date and emphasised the current action by nurses and midwives was not something they took lightly.

However, the situation had reached the point where some staff were “at breaking point” and patient safety was being compromised.

The bigger and different layouts of both new departments, opened earlier this year as part of the hospital redevelopment, were only exacerbating the problems.

Mrs Telfer maintained hospital management was in breach of the staffing award in both departments and “they can’t do that and not expect any consequences”.

She said they were “not here to scare the public or say you won’t be treated well”, but emphasised the community deserved the best care available and currently staff did not have the resources to ensure that.

The issues in the maternity unit were particularly disturbing, she said, and the association had been in talks with management for almost two years about the staff shortages.

There was a formula for working out the number of midwives a department should have, and currently the Tamworth unit was down six full-time equivalent positions. 

Branch member and midwife, Deborah Walganski, said the birth statistics for Tamworth hospital were up more than 25 per cent from July last year to this year, but nothing had changed staffing wise.

She said enrolled nurses were also being called on to do more than they were qualified for because of the shortage of midwives on the floor during a shift, putting them in a difficult position.

Ben Fielding, a branch member and a nursing unit manager within the emergency department, said the 10 additional hours on the ED night shift, as recommended by the Industrial Relations Commission of NSW, didn’t sound like a lot –  “and isn’t” – but “could make all the difference when you’re sitting in the waiting room for six hours with a sick child waiting to see a doctor”.