Vic nurses' dispute halts urgent surgery

Patients have had urgent operations cancelled and almost 1000 Victorian public hospital beds are closed as nurses continue industrial action.

The action has led to blockages in already stretched emergency departments, with one patient who had experienced a suspected heart attack being left unchecked for 90 minutes and nurses initially refusing to admit a 96-year-old woman to a ward.

Victorian Health Minister David Davis warned that people could die.

"There is no doubt that there is a threat to life, there is a threat and a risk to patients," he told reporters on Tuesday.

The action is part of the Australian Nursing Federation's campaign for better pay and conditions, with the union asking for an 18.5 per cent pay rise over three years and eight months and the preservation of nurse-patient ratios.

The public hospitals, backed by the state government, have taken the ANF to Fair Work Australia and applied to have the action terminated.

Some 969 beds are closed across the state, including 425 in Melbourne and 544 in country areas.

More than 311 surgeries have been cancelled since Saturday, including about 160 on Tuesday.

People have had waits of longer than 24 hours in emergency departments, including 10 with ailments such as broken bones and pneumonia at hospitals across Melbourne's southeast.

Seven patients at Dandenong Hospital and two at Monash Medical Centre waited longer than 24 hours in emergency departments. It was first time that had happened at Monash in three years.

Northern Health chief nursing officer Robynne Cooke said one patient had waited close to 40 hours on an ambulance trolley.

Category one patients, who should be operated on within 30 days, were among those whose surgeries were cancelled at Austin Hospital.

Austin Health executive director of ambulatory and nursing services, Ann Maree Keenan, said two category one and 14 category two patients had procedures cancelled on Tuesday.

One category one patient was booked in for a bladder operation to check for possible cancer and the other needed laser treatment on kidney stones, which can be extremely painful.

A spokeswoman for Mr Davis said the government had confirmed there was a further category one patient whose surgery was cancelled at Austin Hospital.

The bed closures have led to clashes between nursing staff and emergency department physicians about which patients are sick enough to be admitted to beds.

In one instance at the Austin Hospital on Monday, a patient who had suffered a suspected heart attack was left sitting in a chair unchecked for 90 minutes when they should have been hooked up to a cardiac monitor, Ms Keenan said.

At Northern Health, Ms Cooke said she had to convince the union to accept patients needing admission to wards, including an elderly woman.

"I mean, she was 96," she told the FWA hearing.

"I shouldn't to be in a position where I have to sell a patient to an ANF organiser.

"The ANF has become the bed managers for the state."

Eastern Health chief executive Alan Lilley said ambulances were experiencing long waits at hospitals, which in turn diminished their capacity to respond to emergency calls.