Hospital staff prepare for showdown over cuts

STAFF at Mercy University Hospital (MUH) are steeling themselves for tough negotiations next month after the hospital stepped back from controversial €4 million cost-cutting measures announced last week.

MUH management says it is expecting unions, including the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), Impact and SIPTU, to come up with alternative methods of savings when they meet on April 1. The hospital is experiencing a €7m budget deficit.

MUH deputy chief executive Jim Corbett said he expects the negotiations to end in weeks.

Last Friday, heads of departments at the hospital were called into a meeting with senior management and were informed how maternity leave top-ups and sick pay were to be halted, while premium payments for working on Saturdays and other unsocial hours were to be scrapped. They were told that on-call allowances were to be cut by a third, as was the acting-up allowance, given when a lower grade employee fills in temporarily for a higher grade colleague. It is reported management told the department heads that the cost savings were being backdated to March 1.

The INO said it received at least 50 phone calls and emails last Friday alone, with more shocked staff contacting them over the weekend by mobile telephone.

“News of the meeting spread like wildfire. People due to go on to maternity leave and those on sick leave were hugely distressed. There was a huge anger out there and by Monday, I was being asked to call a ballot for all out industrial action,” said INO industrial relations officer Michael Dineen.

The INO met with the hospital chief executive on Monday where hospital management said theannounced cutbacks were not a fait accompli but an “openingnegotiating position”.

Both sides also agreed that if the issue is not resolved locally, it will be referred to the Labour Relations Commission or Labour Court.

Mr Dineen last night accused the hospital of “scare mongering” and “kite flying” and “of causing unnecessary concern to staff”.

“I now fully believe that this was a stunt to scare staff and they just wanted to ‘up the ante’,”he said. Hospital managementhas refused to comment on this assertion.