Nurses warn of fatal risks from hospital cutbacks

SENIOR nurses have warned the death rate of hospital patients will increase due to the Government’s cutbacks in frontline nursing staff.

In a speech to her union’s members the president of the Irish Association of Directors of Nursing and Midwifery (IADNM), Irene O’Connor said the loss of 2,000 nursing posts in the system had resulted in a seriously increased risk to hospital patients.

“Nursing and midwifery frontline posts are vital to the services. Without nursing management posts, wards and services throughout the country are being left without adequate numbers of clinicians to lead and manage the services,” she said. “Following an increase in patient deaths, British Mid-Staffordshire investigation reports in 2009 and again this year highlighted the growing ‘acting’ phenomenon within nursing governance, along with the non-replacement of nurses, as the main contributory factor in the extraordinary ration of patient deaths in the hospital.