Lenihan faces wrath of nurses during conference

MINISTER of State at the Department of Health, Brian Lenihan, was heckled during his speech to delegates at the Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) annual conference yesterday.

Delegates attending the conference in Cavan were unimpressed that Mr Lenihan, rather than Tánaiste and Health Minister Mary Harney, travelled to address them. Ms Harney is in the US speaking at a conference which involves sponsorship by private corporations.

His reference to her plan to use the private sector to create 1,000 public beds was not well received.

Under the proposal, private developers will be given the opportunity to build private facilities on the grounds of existing public hospitals to which private patients will be transferred.

A motion at the conference, which was carried unanimously, called for the immediate reversal of “any and all strategies” which move to introduce privatised care. Madeline Speirs, who was re-elected as president of the INO, said the organisation did “not believe the Government had a mandate for this shift in public policy”. “Once you introduce profit into the healthcare system, then you jeopardise and marginalise quality assured care,” she said.

Mr Lenihan also said his department would shortly launch a consultation process on the implementation of prescribing.

“This will be your last AGM where you will not have the power of prescribing,” he said.

He refused to be drawn into the nurses industrial relations row with Ms Harney — who has rejected their eight-point pay claim — saying: “I’ll stick to the script for the purpose of this meeting.”

And he defended the Tánaiste’s plan to tackle the A&E crisis, promising the Government and the Health Service Executive would give it top priority.

Ms Speirs said retention of nurses — 9,000 of whom went overseas to work in the past six years — must also be a priority and should be recognised, like the A&E crisis, as a national emergency.

She said the Tánaiste’s absence at the conference was noted and that the organisation “would watch with interest when we reconvene in 12 months’ time — possibly in the middle of an election campaign — to see if the Tánaiste can find the time to address the only profession that is with patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week”.