Guilt, fatigue and stress: a day in the life of a nurse at Bendigo Health

These are some of the everyday feelings that nurses at Bendigo Health go through as the hospital battles massive staffing shortages.

Nurses with decades of experience speak of feeling sorry for colleagues working double shifts, of feeling guilt for not being able to work on their rostered days off and of feeling overwhelmed when at the hospital.

Bendigo Health recently had a two-day 'Code Yellow' emergency where every bed in the facility was full and patients were overflowing into makeshift wards.

However, the nurses on the ground paint a very grim picture of what life is like at Bendigo Health with many saying the issues around staffing and conditions have been dire long before the 'Code Yellow' was issued.

Graham Rhode is an associate nurse unit manager on the medical ward of Bendigo Health.

He said in the last fortnight he had worked about 91 to 95 hours given the severe staffing shortages gripping the hospital.

Mr Rohde said in the week leading up to June 1 he worked the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with planned days off on the Friday and Saturday.

Instead, he worked an eight-hour day shift on the Saturday before going home to rest, came back to the hospital and worked a night shift which ended at 7.30am on Sunday, June 2.

That was followed by a week of night shifts.

He, and his fellow nurses, said this type of overtime and understaffing had been ongoing the last few years at Bendigo Health.

Mr Rohde said June 8 was supposed to be a rostered day off which he intended to take, but will still be required to come to work in the afternoon.

"It is my daughter's 30^th birthday, she deserves to have me at her 30^th birthday so I will go to Melbourne tomorrow (Saturday)," he said.

"I will come back to work tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon. I will start at 1.30pm and work an afternoon shift."

Care registered nurse Rhianna Davey has been at Bendigo Health on and off for the last 17 years.

She said in her time working in 2024 there was a constant feeling of being overworked with staffing numbers at critical levels.

"Everyone is working so bloody hard to keep the community safe, [but] we need more feet on the floor," she said.

"We certainly don't have enough and we are burning people out. Our nursing staff are just done."

Ms Davey said the emergency department and the intensive care unit were the problematic areas where staffing shortages were felt the hardest.

She said patient safety was paramount but with nurses being pulled from other areas of the hospital to plug the gaps in the ED and ICU, it left the vacated areas without adequate nursing staff numbers.

She said she could no longer work double shifts as she must care for her children and felt sorry for the many nurses who do work them.

"That is not fair on them," Ms Davey said.

"They have also got a life but we can't leave because we feel that we are obligated to look after our patients.

"We wouldn't leave them in the lurch like that, or our fellow colleagues."

ICU nurse Karena Spencer works in multiple areas of the hospital which she said she had to do for her own mental and emotional wellbeing.

She said a daily problem faced by nurses in the ICU in regard to staff was that every patient had to receive one-on-one care given many were on life support.

She said this absorbed a lot of staff who could not just drop what they were doing and cover gaps in another ward without first finding someone to cover their area and patients.

"This is not new. This has been going on well before COVID but it is only getting worse - the amount of doubles that are happening across the board," Ms Spencer said.

"I - where possible - won't do them anymore because it isn't any good for my health.

"Sixteen to 18 hours (of work) is not good for a nurse. We do it to support our colleagues, we do it out of guilt. I would just love the community to be more aware of what is going on."

Ms Spencer has been at Bendigo Health for 18 years and said a major problem was the continual loss of senior staff from burn-out or retirement.

She said another problem for nurses working double shifts was their position on the ward or in the unit had to be covered by another person.

All three nurses said they wanted to see change, more staff on the wards and better pay and conditions.

However, all three were worried about what the coming months held for staff.

Prior to the most recent vote on the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement, the state government issued a statement saying it would "always back our nurses and midwives and the extraordinary work they do to provide Victorians with world-class care - keeping each and every one of us healthy and safe".

The government had reached an in-principle agreement with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) on a renewed pay offer.

However, it was rejected by ANMF members at a vote on Monday, May 20 which has led to the continuation of industrial action as nurses fight for better pay and conditions.