Australia doesn't have enough specialist critical care nurses to operate the thousands of new ventilators coming into the health system to handle the coronavirus pandemic, nurses are warning.

Health authorities are preparing hospital intensive care units for a wave of COVID-19 patients within weeks, with Health Minister Greg Hunt working to double the number of ventilators in Australian hospitals to more than 4000.

However, intensive care nurses say the plan could cost lives if standards are not maintained, as the government scrambles to find thousands of extra nurses to monitor coronavirus patients fighting for their lives on ventilators.

Each bed in a hospital's intensive care unit is manned by the equivalent of five full-time registered nurses across eight-hour shifts, 24 hours a day and seven days a week, about half of them holding a postgraduate qualification in critical care nursing.