Featuring on the front page of The Canberra Times on this day 42 years ago was an article outlining mistakes by Canberra nurses under stress due to understaffing.
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A lack of qualified nurses at the Canberra and Woden Valley hospitals had led to mistakes, as nursing aides were doing the work of registered nurses and nurses could not give patients the adequate care they needed.
Woden Valley nurses passed a recommendation at a meeting calling for a public statement which would inform people that their lives were at risk in the hospitals because of inadequate staffing.
A nursing sister was quoted as saying: "They come into the hospitals at their own risk. If they can fend for themselves they will go home in one piece.
"If they can't, they may not go home at all."
The president of the ACT branch of the Royal Australian Nursing Federation, Mrs Bernadette Ibell, said nurses were cutting corners and giving survival nursing care, which was far from adequate.
The chairman of the Capital Territory Health Commission, Mr Russell Boardman, had told her there would be a further $3.5 million in health cuts, she said.
