More than 400 nurses marched to the Otago Museum Reserve yesterday, as the New Zealand Nurses Organisation launched a nationwide strike.
NZNO president Anne Daniels said the strike was a long time coming and that Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora was "hiding the facts".
"The facts in the care capacity demand management say very clearly we are understaffed everywhere you look.
"When you're understaffed, patients wait and their outcomes are worse."
Ms Daniels said the offer of a 0.5% rise in nurses’ wages was also insulting and amounted to a wage decrease in real terms.
"We've gone through Covid-19, we've put ourselves on the line, we come to work every day and work with less and less and do more and more to the point where we are totally shattered and we can't have a life ourselves, and yet they still are asking for more.
"It is disrespectful. It's unkind. It's against all the principles of Te Whatu Ora that they say that they want to treat their staff well."
Ms Daniels said the state of Dunedin Hospital exacerbated all of the existing issues, while the staffing was at a crisis point.
"Working in a hospital where the roof falls down when it rains and the water has come down in a flood, that is unprecedented. It's not many hospitals that have to deal with that, but here we are."
Veteran nurse Jani Witchell said the situation had become untenable for many nurses in the past few years, particularly as HNZ was announcing widespread redundancies in various departments.
"The Dunedin Hospital facilities are definitely a concern in regards to our ability to get safe patient care within them."
Another nurse who declined to be named said HNZ had "finally got nurses to a good staffing level".
"So it's about really wanting to deliver the care we can with the numbers we have now.
"We don't need any more reductions in the bedside nurses."
She said there could be consequences if staffing was not kept up to a reasonable level.
"It'll just mean people won't be looked after. They'll be ringing a bell that won't be answered."
An HNZ spokesman said the organisation valued the enormous contribution of the nursing workforce, but was "disappointed that strike action is being taken so early in the bargaining process".
"We are committed to reaching a settlement with NZNO. Any settlement needs to reflect the ongoing reset of Health NZ as we work to get back to budget and complete the restructuring under way."
The spokesman said for registered nurses the middle salary step had risen by 28% since 2016 and an additional 23% from the recent pay equity settlement on top of that.
"We believe bargaining is the most effective way to resolve the outstanding issues and avoid any further disruption to patients and the wider health system."
