Locally, three Barraba nurses walked an average of 15.74km per week, seven nurses at John Hunter Hospital walked an average of 24.67km per week and at Tamworth Hospital seven nurses walked 14.2km per week on average.

NSW Nurses Association Tamworth representative Roz Norman said as winter drew closer the wards were getting busier and busier.

“Nurses are constantly moving without a break which is a part of what the Nurses’s Association claim is that nurses are there 24/7 and constantly working,” she said.

“There is no downtime for nurses in public hospitals anymore.”

Mrs Norman said nurses would possibly be walking further during winter and other peak periods such as an asthma epidemic.

“All those things impact on the nurses’ workload,” she said.

NSW Nurses Association general secretary Brett Holmes said factors including layout of the facility, type of ward and the nurse’s position impacted on the distance walked by nurses.

“Some individuals in general wards walked more than 40km during the week,” he said.

“One even did more than 60km.

“There is no doubt many nurses are run off their feet just keeping the health system going. To keep them doing it the State Government must properly address key issues such as workloads, pay rates for experienced nurses, pay rates for working unsocial hours and improved superannuation in the next nurses’ wages and conditions

agreement.”

Mrs Norman said the commitment that nurses showed to their work and their patients needed to be valued.

“We’re not asking for much – just to be kept ahead of inflation,” she said.

“We need to show work of nurses is valued so we can attract people back to nursing and attract young people to nursing because people look at pay rates then conditions and those things are what people use to make career decisions.

“Unfortunately nursing is getting further and further down the list and it’s an added problem in rural areas because we are not able to attract registered nurses because they haven’t got the back-up and support they need in rural areas when they’ve first done their training.”