Army ready to cover for psychiatric nurses

DEFENCE forces medical staff were on standby last night to offer weekend cover to the Central Mental Hospital as an overtime ban on psychiatric nurses decimated staff numbers.

The decision to call on the army for support was being considered as the Health Service Executive (HSE) and psychiatric nursing unions met late last night at the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) in a last-ditch attempt to avert an escalation of disruptive action from Monday.

Of concern at the LRC was the compensation package the HSE has proposed for the country’s 7,000 psychiatric nurses.

According to the nurses’ unions, the

Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) and SIPTU, the scheme, which took the Government several years to create, provides very little for their members who are assaulted.

They say that if a nurse is pushed to the ground and kicked and the kick results in a laceration to the kidneys, the liver or the spleen, it would not be covered. Furthermore, a nurse would only be compensated for the loss of two eyes — not one.

The unions claim they had been promised a scheme similar to what is provided under the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) redress scheme. They say what is on offer is approximately 12% to 15% of the PIAB scheme.

The unions are determined that unless a better package is found they will put a stop to any redeployment of community-based nurses to acute services from Monday.

In that event there will be far too few practitioners to run the facilities and mental health services will be thrown into chaos.

Yesterday, PNA’s Des Kavanagh said the talks had been divided into breadth of coverage; psychological trauma; the remuneration in each category and historical cases.

He said the fact that the sides were still round the table was a good sign but it was no guarantee there would be a successful outcome.

He said they had been told that the army medical team were being proposed to handle staff shortages in the Central Mental Hospital, just one of the acute mental health facilities which are under severe strain.

Several other facilities around the country have already been forced to close, including services in Clare, Tipperary and Wicklow. Many more face automatic closure if the unions proceed with their threat to block all staff redeployments.

Last night, the HSE confirmed enlisting the help of the army was one of the options being considered but it said it had not made a decision on which avenue to follow.