Hospital to slash staff allowances

ONE of the country’s largest voluntary hospitals is slashing staff allowances and asking workers to take unpaid leave as part of a raft of cost-cutting measures designed to save more than €4 million this year.

Management at Cork’s Mercy University Hospital (MUH) said last night that it has no option as it faces a €7.5m budget shortfall following the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) programme to reduce its overall expenditure by €1 billion this year.

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) condemned the move and said the cuts would result in the elimination of unsocial hours premiums and Saturday allowances, a reduction of on-call allowances and non-payment of maternity pay and sick pay.

“The INO abhors the manner in which this announcement was made to staff,” said INO industrial relations officer Michael Dineen.

“These decisions were arrived at without any engagement with the INO or other representative bodies.

“This is a clear breach of the Information and Consultation Act of 2004 and shows scant regard for the impact that it will have on staff members, both financially and emotionally.”

Mr Dineen said the INO would use “whatever methods necessary” to preserve its members.

Despite saving €3m last year, MUH management told staff yesterday that it had to find savings of a further €4.5m for 2009.

MUH chief executive Pat Madden said the fresh round of cutbacks presented a very serious challenge.

“Our absolute priority at MUH is to maintain services at their current level and to retain all the jobs in the hospital, if at all possible,” he said.

Mr Madden praised his staff’s commitment to the hospital and its patients and said it was regrettable there were further reductions in his hospital’s budget.

Meanwhile, the INO is planning to join a major political protest in Bantry in west Cork this afternoon following the closure of 10 acute care beds at Bantry General Hospital, while patients lie on trolleys elsewhere in the hospital.

The INO said the decision was made against the wishes of the clinical director of reconfiguration, who assured the public on March 6 that all beds at the hospital would remain open.

INO industrial relations officer Patsy Doyle described the decision to close the beds as “reprehensible”.