HSE set to cut student nurses’ pay in dispute

NURSING organisations have reacted angrily after the discovery that student nurses are included in the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) threat to dock the pay of participants in the work-to-rule crisis.

A letter sent by the HSE to all nurses late last week was also received by fourth-year student nurses, informing them that they would have 13.16% of their pay withheld as a result of the dispute.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) said the HSE had sunk to a new low in involving students in the row. “Students are in hospitals to gain clinical experience. They’re not supposed to be answering phones or running errands for anyone in the first place so they can’t be accused of working to rule,” said INO deputy general secretary, Dave Hughes.

The dispute, over pay and working hours, is entering its seventh week with all nurses and midwives maintain a work to rule, meaning that they don’t answer phones, attend meetings, use computers or open or close community facilities.

The series of related all-out work stoppages by the INO and the Psychiatric Nurses Association is also stepping up this week with three-hour stoppages taking place today at Sligo General Hospital, Sligo Mental Health Services, Naas General Hospital, Kildare Mental Health Services; Beaumont Hospital, Dublin and St Ita’s Mental Health Services, Portrane, Dublin.

A major escalation of the action takes place on Wednesday when a nationwide two-hour stoppage will take place.

A spokeswoman for Naas General Hospital said today’s planned action had lead to the postponement of 70 outpatient procedures and 10 day procedures.

Despite the impending nationwide action on Wednesday, there were no conciliatory moves by either side over the weekend.

Financial guru Eddie Hobbs entered the fray by blaming the nurses’ action on the Government’s failure to take tough decisions in the past. He writes in You and Your Money magazine that failure to keep tabs on developers had caused the land and property boom that had caused spiralling inflation and ever-higher pay demands.

“Nurses and teacher unions smell blood from a Taoiseach who prefers to buy consensus by dishing out more lolly than demanding value for it. Yet it’s hard to blame workers for stamping their feet in frustration as they watch tax cuts and wage rises vanish in higher living costs.”

As preparations are made to try and minimise the impact of this week’s stoppages on patients, the HSE is also facing action on a second front. Members of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association are pushing ahead with plans to begin industrial action next week in protest at the advertisement of new consultants posts before details of a revised consultants contract are agreed.