Member for Southern Highlands Peta Seaton has welcomed the decision of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission for a 6 per cent pay rise to nurses saying it was about time local nurses were recognised for their skills and work, especially relative to other health professionals.

Ms Seaton said the pay-rise would go some way to getting nurses back into hospitals and to attract new recruits into the profession.

"This is a positive step," Ms Seaton said, "although disappointing that the Carr Government fought the increase every step of the way."

Ms Seaton said in the last two years, problems relating to nurses pay resulted in nurses at our local hospital being asked to work double shifts and more, in order to fill roster gaps caused by lack of nurses in the system.

"Nurses were being burnt out, and this in turn made it even tougher for the remaining nurses in the system to cope and made more think about finding an alternate career.

"Most nurses I speak to have chosen nursing because of their love of the profession and the enjoyment they get from helping people - but they also need to be fairly paid and be recognised for shift work and the stresses of the job," Ms Seaton said.

"I have had reason to access the hospital system on two occasions in recent years - once at Bowral with a sick child and once in Wollongong recently, and on both occasions I was impressed with the generosity and dedication of nursing staff in tough conditions."

NSW Liberal Leader John Brogden said: "Nurses are the heartbeat of the hospital system and we have supported the need to pay them more since they called for the hearing back in July 2001.

"The government has closed more than 4500 hospital beds and without nurses there is no chance of reopening them to help reduce elective surgery waiting lists or unblock emergency departments.

"The Carr Government has so neglected nurses for the past eight years that only 33,000 of 92,000 registered nurses in NSW are choosing to work in our public hospitals.