Hospital cannot hire psychiatric nurses due to cuts, says union

A PSYCHIATRIC hospital with the highest rate of staff assaults in the country cannot take on extra nurses because of cutbacks, unions have claimed.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) said St Loman’s Hospital in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, has 184 psychiatric nurses, 22 short of its recommended complement of 206.

Des Kavanagh, general secretary of the PNA, said the union believed a number of trainee nurses, due to qualify in October, would not be offered jobs at St Loman’s because of health board cutbacks.

“It’s a serious issue. We are already under quota and we are talking about a hospital which has the highest number of assaults in the country and the highest rate of early retirement, mainly as a result of these assaults,” he said.

“It is one area of the health service where if there is a shortage, then we have a crisis on our hands. We’ve put a lot of pressure on the Department of Health to get more nurses trained and now we’re looking at newly qualified staff who can’t be guaranteed jobs.”

Chairman of the St Loman’s branch of the PNA, David McManus, said 11 of the 15 student nurses due to qualify were hoping for jobs within the South Western Area Health Board, but were unlikely to get them.

PNA representative in Limerick, Liam McNamara said student nurses in Limerick were facing an equally bleak future, with 30 nurses due to graduate and not even the traditional six-month contract on offer.

Mr Kavanagh said the number of psychiatric staff nurse posts had dropped from 3,525 in 1990 to 3,455 by 1998 and that they were one of the only grades operating below quota.

“All we are asking is that we be brought up to our quota of 5,000. We are looking for a meeting with Health Minister Mícheál Martin to discuss the staffing crisis. We are talking about public protests unless the problem is addressed,” he said.

The nurses are prohibited from taking industrial action because of an agreement under the new social partnership deal, Sustaining Progress.

Mr Kavanagh said a shortage of psychiatric nurses had a colossal impact on patient care and that nurses were already overstretched. He said every psychiatric hospital in the country had staff vacancies.

Mr McManus said there had been seven serious assaults on staff within the St Loman’s mental health services since last October.

A statement from the health board said St Loman’s facilitated the clinical placement of TCD students who are on a three-year course and that there was “no question of any threat to the position of any person undertaking the course, and training will continue though to its completion”.

The statement said graduates could apply for advertised posts through an open competition, when and if vacancies arose.

A separate statement said safety audits were carried out and reviewed annually, particularly with regard to the risk of violence.

St Loman’s Hospital provides the largest mental health service in the country and serves a population of 266,000 in west Dublin.