Nurses ‘will not tolerate A&E crisis for two years’

NURSES preparing for a winter of discontent say they won’t allow their colleagues and the patients they care for to wait two further years before the A&E crisis is addressed.

Health and safety issues for patients, a 35-hour working week and finding the best way of getting equal pay for nurses and other health professionals with degrees will also be discussed at a crunch meeting of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) tomorrow.

No walk-outs or strike action is proposed at this point. However, anger over the situation in A&E, public service pay and the introduction of healthcare assistants is growing.

Anger and discontent among nurses over working conditions, pay and changes in the service is brewing, INO general secretary Liam Doran said. He warned a fresh round of pay demands could be on the cards.

“This Special Delegate Conference will see over 300 delegates gather to review the organisation’s future strategies in relation to these issues,” he said. “It is the view of our executive council that the proposed benchmarking exercise will not address the outstanding issues of concern to nurses and midwives and we should, therefore, pursue our legitimate claims directly with health employers.

“In addition, the INO executive does not accept that the terms of reference, as proposed, reflect the priority given to these issues in an earlier Labour Court recommendation.”

The conference comes after the new head of the Health Service Executive, Brendan Drumm, conceded it would take two years to sort out the chronic problems of lengthy waiting times and patients on trolleys in accident and emergency departments.

“In relation to A&E, the country still faces a crisis and the Tánaiste’s 10-point plan has not eased the situation. We cannot allow our members, and the patients they care for, to face at least two further years before the situation is addressed,” said Mr Doran. “The decisions to be taken at this conference, on these important issues, will greatly influence the organisation’s direction and action on these critical issues, within the short- to medium-term.”

The conference will debate, and vote upon, an executive council motion which calls on the organisation to reject the terms of reference, now proposed for the benchmarking body, and to pursue its various claims, for improvement in pay and conditions for nurses and midwives, directly with health employers.

This would see the organisation’s claims for pay parity with other degree level health professionals and the introduction of a 35-hour week. It would also see the removal, with retrospection, of the pay anomaly between the Registered Nurse in Intellectual Disability and the social care worker being pursued directly with employers and, if necessary, to the LRC and Labour Court.

The conference will also review developments on the agreed introduction of the healthcare assistant grade since the matter was the subject of a recommendation by the National Implementation Body (NIB) in May of this year.