Nurses on the picket line over staff levels

DISGRUNTLED nurses at a hospital for the elderly are refusing to make beds, carry out portering duties and other non-nursing tasks in a dispute over staffing levels.

Nurses at St Patrick’s Hospital in Waterford took to the picket line yesterday for the second time for an hour-long lunchtime protest.

A union official said patience is wearing extremely thin among over-worked staff.

The nurses are already on a work-to-rule and have not ruled out further stoppages in a crisis bid to secure more staff for the busy wards. Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) industrial relations officer Tony Fitzpatrick said his members are fed up with conditions at the hospital: “INO members at St Patrick’s will continue to pursue their legitimate claim for increased staffing by whatever means necessary to ensure that they obtain staffing levels conducive to the delivery of quality care.”

He said the escalation of the work-to-rule and the lunchtime picket, did not compromise patient care: “It’s now pay-back time and the South Eastern Health Board (SEHB) simply must increase the number of nurses on wards, if a safe standard of care is to be delivered.”

Further escalation of action has been suspended, pending a Labour Relations Commission hearing with the health board. The union was informed that the health board has referred the matter to the LRC yesterday.

A date for that hearing has not yet been fixed.

The 50-plus nurses at St Patrick’s Hospital care for 120 patients. Last October the SEHB gave an interim commitment that it would provide 1.5 extra nursing staff for the unit. The INO wants four extra staff. The SEHB is hopeful the outstanding issues can be resolved through the LRC.

Meanwhile nurses and midwives attending a conference in Sligo were told that the Irish hospitals system is choked with bureaucracy.

The Irish Association of Directors of Nursing and Midwifery (IADNAM) said the last thing needed was more management bodies.

“There is enough bureaucracy in the system. We need to start making decisions close to the delivery of care, that is, the patient”, IADNAM president, Geraldine Regan, told members yesterday.

Speaking at the opening session of the association’s annual conference, Ms Regan said: “Whatever about funding, we do have an urgent need to reform Irish health services organisationally. We need to reduce the number of health boards and health agencies. We need to flatten hierarchies and to create a system of more responsive decision-making.”