Action would disrupt care of elderly people in homes
At a meeting in Dublin at the weekend, they decided to defer planned industrial action for five weeks to allow the National Council for the Professional Development of Nursing and Midwifery to respond to a request they have made for confirmation of their status.
INO general secretary Liam Doran said the nurses wanted the council set up by the Commission on Nursing to confirm their status as clinical nurse specialists, and that if this was done, there would be no industrial action.
Last week, 93% of the 1,550 public health nurse members of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) voted in favour of industrial action.
Action by the nurses could seriously disrupt the care of very sick and elderly people who are looked after in their homes. The nurses want to retain their status as clinical nurse specialists, which they claim was set out by the Commission on Nursing, set up by the Government which accepted its findings.
However, the INO feels that a recent recommendation by the benchmarking body has threatened this status. If implemented, it would erode their pay by 3% compared to other nursing grades. In that situation, according to Mr Doran, public health nurses who require three distinct nursing qualifications that can only be attained after a minimum of six years of study would be paid less than other community-based nursing specialists holding one registered qualification.
Mr Doran said if the union didn't receive "the confirmation we want," it would give notice of a work-to-rule in December to start in January.
Labour Party deputy leader Liz McManus has already urged Health Minister Micheál Martin to intervene to avert the threatened industrial action. She also criticised the spiralling level of unrest in the health service.
