Hospital beds empty as Nepean Hospital undergoes multi-million-dollar renovation

It's undergoing a multi-million dollar re-vamp, but overstretched staff at Sydney's Nepean Hospital say they're already struggling to run the old building, let alone a new one.

Patients revealed to 9News a staff shortfall is leaving beds lying empty, while the emergency department is squeezed. Staff say an old building is the least of the hospital's worries.

Nurses are becoming increasingly frustrated, saying they can't do their job properly because the hospital is understaffed and under-resourced.

Gerard Hayes from the Health Services Union says it's a Band aid for a much wider problem.

"The government often talks about bricks and mortar as if that's actually going to cure people," he said. "It's what happens inside a facility."

Former patient, Mark Tyndall, spent five nights at the hospital. He took photos of the rows of empty beds in the Acute Care ward, despite a congested Emergency department and a growing number of people waiting for treatment.

"The nurses I spoke to are too scared to speak out," he said.

Nepean Hospital has issued a statement defending its practices.

"There might be beds available in the ward for a variety of reasons - patients may be having tests or undergoing a procedure or surgery elsewhere in the hospital," the statement reads.

"The bed may be ready for a patient in transit from another hospital or a patient from within the hospital other than the Emergency Department."

Opposition Health spokesman, Ryan Park, said: "We're seeing over a third of people who present to our emergency departments wait more than four hours."

The latest figures from the Bureau of Health information show in the last quarter, just 48 per cent of patients in Nepean's emergency department had their treatment start on time.

Of the 17,000 patients who were admitted, only 57 per cent rated their hospital care as "very good".

The government is spending $1 billion on the new facility, but those already working there are skeptical, saying they can't even staff the existing hospital.