The Orange Hospital Branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association will stage a rally at Robertson Park from 9am on Tuesday with member Grace Langlands one of the speakers.

"We're overwhelmed, we're over-worked. We're burning out," Ms Langlands said. "We can't keep going like this anymore. We're going to start losing it and our patients are going to suffer."

NSWNMA organisers for the Western Local Health District Tracey Coyte said rallies will be held in each of the major centres with the Bathurst rally expected to be the largest of the Western LHD given it was NSW Deputy Premier Paul Toole's seat.

Members of Canowindra Memorial Hospital's branch of the NSWNMA also announced they would be joining the action, and were asking community members to join them at the hospital gates from 8.30am.

Ms Langlands said nurses were frequently missing breaks, working long hours but also missing education sessions.

"We should be able to get our breaks at a reasonable time, not shove a coffee down your throat and hope that you might get some food later on in the day," she said. "The nurses on the wards are doing double shifts, going morning into an afternoon, afternoon into a night, coming back ...

"We care about our patients too much, we want our patients to be safe and we're working ourselves into the ground to make sure that they are cared for to the best of our ability but that's just not enough anymore.

"We need to be safe, we need to be proactive, we need our ratios."

Ms Coyte said Queensland and Victoria had nurse to patient ratio while the ACT had recently signed off on them.

"We're calling for mandated shift by shift nurse to patient ratios," Ms Coyte said.

"Part of that too is the midwifery side of thing. In a birthing unit, the mum is the patient, the baby is not counted as a patient.

"So a midwife with five mums effectively has at least five babies as well to care for. That's dangerous."

Ms Coyte said to be safe, the NSWNWA is mandating one nurse to three patients in emergency departments and one nurse to four patients in general or surgical wards. She said there are guidelines in ICU of one to one but COVID-19 had had an impact in this area.

Ms Langlands acknowledge if the government agrees to nurses demands, it could still take some time before more feet were on the ground.

"It will be a while but it will be relief, at least we know they're coming," she said. The NSWMNA are inviting the public to attend the rally.

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