Lithgow hospital in Sydney is handling its operations with the nurse staff which is half the number of the patients in the hospital. It was reported to the union rally in Lithgow. It was further reported that the attendants and the midwives in the emergency department are less in number and most of the ward beds have been closed due to the halt in recruiting of nurses.

The same protests were seen all round the SWAHS region in other hospitals, one of them being the Nepean complex, all this has amounted to the restrictions on the services that the nurses are pledged to provide.

Another local nurse’s rally in Cook Plaza wanted to communicate their request to remove the recruitment ban to provide support to the local hospitals. Rally organizer, Marny said, “At the moment Lithgow Hospital has had to close beds. “It’s a disaster … 50 per cent of beds at Lithgow Hospital are closed and it is getting to the point where the operating theatre can’t be staffed”.

The recruitment ban has to be uplifted in order to provide jobs to the nurses who are unemployed from the last 12 months. She further added that at Lithgow, staff is not being employed at the operation theatres and it is reaching to that level where mothers could not be assisted with a baby’s birth. Somewhat similar situations can be seen in Nepean Hospital and Westmead Hospital.