AT 5.10pm yesterday members of the New South Wales Nurses Association were still sitting by their fax machine waiting for an explanation from the North Coast Area Health Service on its plans to reallocate 86 North Coast hospital beds, including 12 from Grafton and Maclean, as surge beds.

They didn’t get it.

Nurses Association organiser Susan Pearce said she had been told the Health Service had sent the material electronically about 4.45pm, but it hadn’t arrived by the 5pm deadline set by a disputes committee.

“They were going to implement this plan on Tuesday, so I wouldn’t have thought it would take them that long to send us the material,” she said. Read more