Nurses to protest at conditions in A&E

Nurses at Beaumont Hospital where A&E overcrowding is particularly acute will hold a lunchtime protest today to highlight what they say is an intolerable working environment.

The protest takes place in the lead-up to industrial action which is due to commence on January 27 after nurses at the hospital voted overwhelmingly in its favour.

Management at the hospital have appealed to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) to attend the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) in an effort to resolve the dispute.

INMO industrial relations officer, Lorraine Monaghan, said they had accepted the offer but that notice to strike remained in place. Ms Monaghan said she expected the LRC hearing to take place early next week.

“However unless concrete and real proposals are put forward, we will be engaging in industrial action,” she said.

Management at Beaumont has acknowledged the hospital is struggling to cope and earlier this week all scheduled surgery, with the exception of cancer cases, was cancelled. The situation is being reviewed daily. Among the issues contributing to the A&E logjam are delayed discharges, where patients fit for discharge cannot leave the hospital because of the lack of availability of either an appropriate care bed in the community or a home care package. Beaumont generally has an average of 96 such patients. The hospital has also blamed the increase in patients coming to the hospital due to reconfiguration of services across the region.

Ms Monaghan said nurses are dealing with excessive workloads at a time when there are 50 nursing vacancies across the hospital and 10 in the A&E. She said the HSE needed to undertake an immediate and aggressive recruitment drive at home and abroad to improve staff numbers.

Yesterday, there were 35 patients on trolleys in Beaumont’s A&E and another seven on trolleys “behind doors” in wards. Ms Monaghan said putting trolleys on wards was not a solution because it increased risk of transferring infection and could potentially obstruct access to patients at critical times. INMO general secretary Liam Doran said putting trolleys on wards was moving the A&E overcrowding problem “up the house”.

Nationwide, the numbers of patients on trolleys dropped considerably yesterday from a mid-week high of 601 to 371. The HSE said this was mainly due to the mobilisation and co-ordination of resources and people nationally and locally; the availability since January 1 of €25m for short-term beds and the deferral of non-urgent surgery.

The Irish Hospital Consultants Association said its members were “going the extra mile” and working beyond contracted hours.

The INMO is calling on the public to support the lunchtime protest at the gates of Beaumont from 1pm-2pm.

The union is planning a public protest at the gates of the Dáil next Wednesday between 12 and 1.30 pm.

Beaumont has one of the busiest A&Es, seeing 50,000 patients each year.