Nurses plan stoppage in A&E over cutbacks

A WAR of words has erupted between nurses and the HSE over a work stoppage set to occur in Limerick ahead of discussions by health chiefs over the latest cutback plans for the service.

The stand-off will take place at the emergency department of Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick’s between 1pm and 5pm today over claims the department is “unsafe” for patients.

After a meeting between the union and management representatives, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation’s (INMO) regional industrial relations officer, Mary Fogarty, insisted the move was taking place to highlight the union’s concern.

In particular, she warned that the number of available nurses was “below the standard” of other hospitals; that this issue was being hidden by excessive use of overtime and agency workers; and that the HSE had “failed” to meet the union over the concerns.

As a result, she said, the hospital’s emergency department nurses will go ahead with their four-hour work stoppage.

“This dispute flows directly from management’s failure to provide the required number of nursing staff to ensure, on a 24/7 basis, safe care is available to all patients,” she said.

“To suggest, as management has, that the issue of safe care can be addressed by adjustments to rosters, skill mixes and greater flexibility is simply untrue.

“It confirms how detached management in this hospital is from the frontline and the needs of patients.”

A spokesperson for HSE Mid-West said management are continuing to “appeal” to nurses to call off the action, adding that senior officials have “encountered an extraordinary lack of co-operation in normal contingency planning” over the issue.

HSE Mid-West area manager Bernard Gloster said: “In a situation where extra funding is not, and will not be, available from Government, and all concerned know this full well, it would make better sense to sit down and see how we can best utilise the resources we have.”

The stand-off has emerged as HSE officials are due to discuss the latest plans on how to reign in the health service’s spiralling over-budget costs later this week.

Meanwhile, 459 people were waiting on trolleys in public hospitals yesterday — one of the highest figures since the winter crisis at the start of the year.

According to the INMO, the national rate included 36 in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin and 33 in Wexford General. At Limerick, the figure was 10.

At Cork University Hospital a total of 45 patients were forced to cope with inadequate trolley treatment conditions.

However, the corresponding figure for the same period was just seven at the Mercy University Hospital.