Nursing staff from Dubbo Base Hospital will hold a stop-work meeting to address a shortage of frontline staff at the central western NSW facility.
The hospital is currently running below staffing base minimum with 27 full-time vacancies, the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association (NSWNMA) says.
"To try and run a hospital 27 staff short is just not possible," general secretary Judith Kiejda said.
Members will use the meeting on Monday afternoon to consider taking industrial action in the interests of safe patient care.
Ms Kiejda said people referred to the hospital should be worried about being treated by exhausted staff, such as those in the operating suites working a combined total of 120 extra hours per week.
"The nurses are really upset because they can't give the care they want to give," she said.
"They're tired and overworked and just haven't got enough people to do it.
"You have trouble recruiting because people don't want to come and work where they know they're going to be flogged to death."
The new Dubbo hospital opened in mid-December last year and serves as a referral hospital for many rural NSW medical facilities.
Ms Kiejda said NSWNMA has responded to similar staffing issues at hospitals in Tamworth, Wagga and Bega since October 2015.
"Wherever the government has built a new - or part of a new - facility, we've had the same problem," she said.
"The government is building buildings but they're not putting any staff in."
The Western NSW Local Health District has been contacted for comment.
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