60 beds to close at two hospitals

SIXTY beds are to shut for up to three months at Cork and Kerry hospitals, delegates at the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) annual conference in Galway heard yesterday.

It also emerged that patients are spending up to three days on trolleys at Cork’s Mercy Hospital’s A&E unit, while supplies such as medical swabs are running out at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

Thirty-one beds will be closing for six weeks at the only male surgical ward in the Mercy Hospital from the end of June until August, while earlier this week it was announced that 30 beds will soon shut at Tralee General Hospital. The measures are to be taken so both hospitals can stay within their budgets, it was claimed. Nurses from both counties say their jobs are becoming “increasingly frustrating and everything is budget, budget, budget while patient services suffer”.

They also revealed an embargo on hiring agency nurses has been in place since the beginning of the year and this means that staff on sick, maternity and annual leave are not being replaced.

Bed closures at the Tralee and Cork hospitals will mean more trolleys in the A&E because emergency patients who need surgical attention have nowhere else to go.

At least 15 patients are on trolleys at the Mercy’s A&E unit every day. Southern Health Board INO industrial officer Michael Dineen said the issue of bed closures at Cork’s Mercy hospital had only come to the attention of the INO at the conference. “There was not one word of consultation with us about the closures, and this is unacceptable,” he said.

“There is no way we will allow cutbacks in the health service to be made on the backs of our members. Nurses who are out on leave are not being replaced and this is leading to extra work for the nurses left behind.

“This is completely unacceptable and a policy we will be demanding a reversal of.”

The INO industrial officer said the situation at CUH, where medical swabs were running low, was deplorable.