Hundreds of surgeries were postponed on Wednesday, 13th November as many of NSW's 50,000 nurses and midwives took to the streets to agitate for an immediate 15 pay rise. The government has declined to go above 10.5 over three years without changes to a plan to increase nurse-to-patient ratios. Fuelling the nurses' fury is their Victorian and Queensland counterparts being promised substantial increases in pay to overcome gender disparity in the public sector.