Some 300 NL nurses either resigned, retired or quit to work casual between January and October of this year.

Registered Nurses Union President Yvette Coffey says nurses are facing unprecedented levels of burnout, and that the exodus she’s witnessed is a first in her more than 30 years as a nurse.

Coffey says nurses are fed up with working conditions, mandated overtime, no breaks and never knowing from one shift to the next whether they’ll be working a 12-hour or a 24-hour shift.

She says there are hundreds of nursing vacancies in the system right now, making it even harder for the ones who remain.

Government stats showed some 615 nursing vacancies in the province in April, but Coffey believes it’s as high as 700 right now.