Thousands of NSW healthcare workers will walk off the job demanding higher wages from the government, following strikes by paramedics and nurses.

Under the state’s wages cap, public sector pay increases can not legally exceed 2.5 per cent but the Health Services Union maintains this is not enough with inflation running at 3.5 per cent.

“We don’t need another politician thanking us for being heroes of the pandemic, we need a pay rise,” said HSU NSW secretary Gerard Hayes.

Mr Hayes says the planned industrial action on Thursday will include stopping work for four hours at major metro hospitals and two hours at regional hospitals.

The union says it will include workers across ambulance, cleaning, allied health, admin, security, catering and wards.

“Health and hospital workers are being smashed by higher prices and stagnant wages,” Mr Hayes said.

“NSW and the nation desperately need higher wages and this needs to start in the NSW health system.”

The planned stoppages follow similar actions by paramedics and nurses last week.

Nurses from up to 170 hospitals statewide took part in a series of rallies on Thursday, with masses of them carrying placards protesting outside Parliament House in Sydney asking for more staff on hand.

Debbie Ross, a clinical nurse in the Infection Control Department at Sydney Hospital with three decades of experience, told AAP on the day: “I’m just fed up and I’m angry. The system is broken.”

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said he was disappointed with nurses walking off the job, noting demands for better staffing and pay rises would strain the state’s finances.

Opposition Leader Chris Minns urged the government on Sunday to sit down with disaffected staff.

“If inflation is predicted to be 4.8 per cent in Sydney over the next 12 months … but the wages cap is pegged at 2.5 per cent, then the government is effectively saying we want you to have a real wage cut.

“That’s not going to cut it … The government’s going to have to step up to the table, the demands of paramedics are real and acute,” he said.

“It looks to me like everything is going up in NSW, except wages”.

AAP

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