Ambulance strike to leave hospitals 'bursting at the seams'
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Published May 16, 2023
The Daily Telegraph, 16 May 2023
The Health Services Union is ramping up the pressure on Premier Chris Minns with a new round of industrial action.
Ambulances will refuse to transport patients out of hospitals on Thursday in a fresh strike action set to ramp up pressure on Premier Chris Minns to scrap the public sector wage cap.
Every hospital in the state will be impacted by the strike action which will see thousands of paramedics and patient transport officers refuse to move discharged patients.
No patients will be taken out of hospital by Health Services Union paramedics and patient transport officers from 7am on Thursday to 7am on Friday.
“Hospitals are under stress now, they’ll be bursting at the seams on Thursday,” HSU NSW Secretary Gerard Hayes told The Daily Telegraph.
The transport ban is an escalation of industrial action launched earlier this month to pile the pressure on Mr Minns to deliver on its pre-election promise of scrapping the public sector wage cap to get workers a better deal.
“This is all due to the fact that two months after Chris Minns was elected, there’s still no movement in relation to the wages cap, no movement in relation to awards modernisation, and no movement in relation to paramedic professional recognistion,” Mr Hayes said.
Workers will continue to take patients to hospital but will no transport them after being discharged.
Mr Hayes has been calling for the Premier to come good on an election promise to boost public sector wages.
He said Mr Minns could have scrapped the wages cap as soon as he was sworn in by “changing ministerial regulation” but has failed to do so.