Hospitals in regional NSW are going without antibiotics and blood supplies, community leaders and medical professionals have told an inquiry.
Understaffing is so serious that nurses sometimes have to help restrain aggressive emergency patients.
Nurses are even meeting staff from a nearby aged care facility in a local car park to get access to incontinence pads when their own ward runs out.
Medical staff have shared their stories about grim working conditions with a NSW parliamentary inquiry investigating rural and regional health, which is sitting on Tuesday in Wellington in the state's central west.
"Sadly there are times, and the times are too frequent for my liking, where we run out of basic antibiotics to treat basic conditions," Warrmunbungle Shire Council's deputy mayor, doctor Aniello Iannuzzi, told the inquiry.
"Say a mother brings in a child with a throat infection or ear infection. There have been times where we haven't had any antibiotics."
Dr Iannuzzi also said the four hospitals in his shire did not have blood supplies, a problem which doctors had raised for many years.
Labor health spokesman Ryan Park said the stories were "all too common" in regional Australia.
"The health inquiry is shining a light on the appalling conditions our vital health staff are experiencing day in, day out," he said in a statement.
"We must make these workplaces safe. Access to quality healthcare should be a given in NSW."
More than 700 people have made submissions to the inquiry.
