Young nurses in Tauranga say they are "burnt out, stressed and struggling" after just years in the job.
Jessica Lasenby, who has been in the profession for three years, said the work environment at Tauranga Hospital often felt unsafe and stressful.
Lasenby was one of hundreds of nurses who went on strike yesterday, fighting for better working conditions, higher pay and safer staffing.
A spokesman for district health boards nationally says almost 3000 additional nurses and midwives were employed in the past three years and it has offered pay rises.
Strikes took place nationwide from 11am to 7pm yesterday, affecting all public hospitals and district health board facilities in New Zealand. All elective surgery cases and nearly all outpatient clinics were deferred for the day.
Hundreds of nurses and supporters marched from St Enochs Church to Tauranga Hospital chanting "life-saving skills but I can't pay my bills" as streams of traffic tooted in support.
The strike came after the New Zealand Nurses Union "overwhelmingly" rejected a second health board offer in collective agreement negotiations.
Lasenby said she loved her job, but young nurses were finding it harder to look after themselves.
"We obviously love to care for people, but it is getting pretty hard to care for ourselves at the same time.
"After two or three years we are already burnt out, stressed and struggling to stay in a job like this.
"We are on stress leave all the time. There are good days, but it is not very often."
Nurse of two years Kate Miller said strike action was the only way for nurses' voices to be heard - particularly around the difficult working conditions.
"You can work a really, really busy day and still feel like you didn't do enough. Sometimes you will show up to work and there will be two of you looking after 20 patients."
Tauranga nurse Alex Dowds said he decided to strike as nurses deserved equal pay. He echoed concerns around the "hectic" and "exhausting" working conditions.
Dowds said it wasn't uncommon for him to not have time to take a break in an eight-and-a-half-hour shift.
"Trying to critically think that whole time and look after someone that whole time without going to the toilet, or having a sip of water. It is exhausting.
"It is just hectic."
Trisha Counihan, who has been nursing for more than 20 years, said many nurses were leaving the profession due to burnout and feeling undervalued.
"It has got to the point now where every day you go in and there is not enough staff. We are just really over it.
"Levels are really poor at the moment. Lots of nurses are leaving and there are not enough people coming into the profession.
"We want to try and attract people, and to do that we need to pay people fairly."
She said young nurses in Tauranga were struggling to get by due to rising living costs in the city.
Prior to the march, NZNO delegate Rebekah Opie addressed the crowd dressed in head-to-toe purple, thanking the nurses who walked off the ward.
Opie's message to the DHBs and the rest of New Zealand was simple: "please listen to us".
"We have 30,000 union members saying we would rather go on strike than accept the offer the DHB have given us.
"We really are concerned that the pressure our healthcare system is under is at some point is going to lead to harm happening to our patients. If we don't get better pay, and more staffing it is our fear that is going to happen."
She told the Bay of Plenty Times the union was "deeply concerned" about young nurses not staying in the profession.
"It is a situation that is not sustainable for the future of our profession."
The Bay of Plenty District Health Board previously estimated about 350 patients between Tauranga and Whakatāne would be affected, with hospitals only opened for emergency, essential services and urgent medical care and most non-essential services and planned surgeries postponed.
The DHB's incident control officer Dot McKeown said while a large number of nurses had joined the strike action, "sufficient numbers" remained working to ensure that patients, whānau and team members were safe.
The industrial action was not something it could influence locally.
"We were disappointed that we were unable to achieve agreement with the nurses in the negotiation process."
She said a large team did contingency planning to prepare for the disruption.
DHB incident controller Trevor Richardson said the DHB had planned in advance to accommodate for Covid-19 vaccinations taking place on Wednesday.
There had been "minimal changes" to appointments, he said.
"We have other providers, such as Ngāti Ranginui, who are covering extra vaccine sites."
Yesterday, district health boards spokesman Dale Oliff said the DHBs understood the pressure on the whole health workforce.
He said DHBs had employed almost 3000 additional nurses and midwives in the past three years, in part because of a joint programme with NZNO matching DHB capacity with patient demand.
"Good progress is being made on this but it isn't completed yet and in addition, there are a number of other staff wellbeing measures in the DHBs' settlement offer.
"We acknowledge and accept the claim that this workforce has been historically undervalued and the joint NZNO/DHB work on the nurses' pay equity claim should be completed by the end of the year."
DHBs have promised to backdate the final settlement to December 31, 2019 and have offered nurses a $4000 lump sum payment as an advance on the final settlement, he said.
Oliff said registered and senior nurses and nurse practitioners made up almost 80 per cent of the workforce and when the DHB offer was bundled together it would see their pay go up by between 4 and almost 12 per cent.
"Even more for enrolled nurses and healthcare assistants who are on lower rates. That is in addition to pay increases of up to 16 per cent in the last pay round."
He said DHBs hoped after the strike "we can get round the table and get a better understanding of what the nurses want".
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