Nurses threaten to refuse patients due to workload

PUBLIC health nurses are considering restricting their workload by refusing to take on new cases because a massive staff shortage is creating unacceptable workloads.

With two-in-every-five community nursing jobs not filled, nurses representatives have warned they are on the verge of industrial action.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) said yesterday that swingeing cutbacks are causing real hardship to the elderly by reducing services to people in their own homes.

Cutbacks in the home-help service have resulted in community nursing services only being available to people who are bed-ridden and living alone.

The INO is seeking a meeting with the Health Service Employers Agency (HSEA) to determine the country’s health boards’ short and medium-term strategies for the crisis-stricken home help sector.

The INO claims the approach of health boards to community nursing services is short-sighted.

Its general secretary, Liam Doran, said the negative impact of reducing services to people in their own home will result in patients ending up back in hospital.

With vacancies topping 42%, the country’s 1,500 public health nurses are considering restricting their workload by refusing new cases.

Mr Doran said the cuts in the community nursing sector are less visible than the closure of hospital beds but are impacting as severely on the most vulnerable in society, the elderly and homeless.

“Community services are now in crisis,” said Mr Doran, pledging a continuing campaign of resistance by the INO to the cuts.

“This short-sighted approach of health boards is flawed and contradictory to stated government policy and will only result in greater cost to the health service, in the longer term,” he said.

Unless resources are provided to front line staff, the public health nurses will refuse to take on new cases to allow them provide proper comprehensive services to their existing patients, Mr Doran warned.

The cuts have led to a curtailment of the child health home visiting service in Dublin, a reduction in the school immunisation service, an elimination of services in some areas to the homeless and the Travelling community and an increased volume of early discharges from overcrowded hospitals.

Mr Doran, who met public health nurses yesterday, said: “Members working everyday in the frontline of community services expressed their anger and frustration at the level of cuts now occurring.

“The evidence produced confirmed that cutbacks are not just taking place in hospitals but health boards are also reducing and eliminating essential community services,” he added.