Over the past three weeks, doctors and nurses have reported extreme burnout amid soaring hospitalisation and infection rates, which have so far resulted in over 2,000 healthcare workers being furloughed.

In the last reporting period, NSW Health said 1,344 people were being treated in hospital for COVID-19.

That number sent the state's hospitalisation total past the previous high of 1,268, recorded on September 21 last year.

The number of patients in intensive care rose to 105, up from 95 the day before, with 27 people requiring ventilation.

Many nurses have spoken to the ABC on the condition of anonymity due to health department rules forbidding them from speaking directly to the media.

One nurse said they cannot call in sick because there isn't the staff to replace them.

"The staff shortages are just proving to be crippling, there's never a shift that I'm coming onto which isn't short staff[ed]," said Caitlin* who works in a Sydney COVID ward.

"Every call for overtime, which is now a daily occurrence, goes pretty much unanswered.

"But we can't even call in sick for a mental health day, because we know we'll never be replaced."

Michelle Rosentreter, a senior ICU nurse and a member of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association (NMA), said exhausted nurses had depleted their sick leave or were not getting time off at all.

"Only a few have managed to start their leave, others have been told 'your leave is cancelled and we need to keep you at work because we don't have enough to backfill you'," she said.

"Sick leave has gone up and we get letters and [are] reprimanded for the excessive sick leave."

This, she said, had resulted in employees "not fit for work" coming in for their shift and leaving unwell.

Ms Rosentreter said she developed COVID-19 symptoms and after getting a PCR test on December 30, she said she felt like she was being "interrogated" about her illness.

"I had to leave mid-shift and that honestly causes a great burden. I felt like I had let my team down," she said.

"There used to be a time in our health system where calling in sick was not looked down upon."

A NSW Health spokesperson said they were "unaware of any specific case where disciplinary action had been taken or threatened due to sick leave being accessed by an employee".

"NSW Health employees have access to generous leave entitlements," the spokesperson said. 

"In addition to their sick leave entitlement, they are also entitled to 20-day special leave to cover time spent in isolation due to COVID-19 exposure.

"Additional sick leave is also available once an employee's annual entitlement has been exhausted in any one year and if s/he has no sick leave entitlement carried over from previous years."

Anne*, who works in critical care at one of Sydney's largest hospitals, said staff were working 12-hour days without lunch or toilet breaks.

"It's been a nightmare, it's really gotten worse in the last two weeks," she said.

Anne, who has been a registered nurse for over a decade, said staff were managing the workload of several people at once.

"Then you get deployed to the COVID ward and of course you have to help out, but you spend the shift dressed in plastic PPE. It's exhausting, it's very stifling and you tend to feel unwell because you're getting dehydrated."

She said she's often juggling up to 10 patients — even when told she'd only be managing four — at once in the COVID ward, many of whom are nursing home or elderly patients requiring a lot of attention.

"People think they have a certain idea of what goes on in hospitals. They don't," said Anne.

"And if they did they'd be mortified to know that their loved ones are in there in the conditions that we're working under."

She said the immense pressure and lack of compensation has led to her colleagues quitting or retiring in droves.

She said hospitals have attempted to replace missing staff with agency nurses, or casual nurses, but this too has proven an inadequate solution.

"My hospital has always been quite short-staffed, particularly in the last six months," she said.

"We brought in agency nurses but that's like using a bandaid to cover a gaping hole and we're ripping off that bandaid because now there are not enough agency nurses."

Anne said she would often need to start early and finish late.

She said industrial action, such as striking, wasn't an option to address the unsustainable conditions as this would leave patients without care.

Last week, NSW Health, faced with 2,000 furloughed healthcare workers, changed some of the rules for asymptomatic staff deemed close contacts of COVID-19 cases.

Under an exemption to the Public Health Order signed by Health Minister Brad Hazzard, these staff can now be ordered back to work. 

NSW Health said the exemption was for workers in critical roles and was to be used in "exceptional circumstances" where it was "necessary to ensure the continued delivery of essential health services".

Rosemary, who has been backfilling as a casual nurse in Sydney, said the decision was the "lesser of two evils".

"One is potentially getting COVID and the other is having zero nurses and you don't get any care at all," she said.

NSW Health acknowledged that health staff had "worked tirelessly during the two years of the current pandemic" and said it was "thankful" for the commitment shown.

It said since the start of the pandemic, NSW Health had engaged in "forward planning with clinicians" and had committed more than $4 billion to ensure the state's hospitals had the capacity to care for COVID-19 patients.

It said the health workforce had been increased by 25 per cent since 2011 with almost 25,000 extra staff hired. 

An additional 8,300 frontline staff will be added "over this term", almost half of them in the regions.

*not their real name

Story By | Kevin Nguyen, Alison Xiao, and Kathleen Calderwood