HSE in talks with nurses over staff shortages

The HSE was yesterday locked in talks with representatives of psychiatric nurses at the biggest hospital in the West in a bid to avoid industrial action over staff shortages.

The meeting followed a picket by up to 50 psychiatric nurses outside University College Hospital in Galway.

The Psychiatric Nurses Association warned that the unit at the Galway hospital and others across the West were unsafe for their members and for patients.

Assurances given by the HSE about the availability of overtime for nurses and agency staff were dismissed by the association’s general secretary, Des Kavanagh.

“The HSE has said they are doing their best and have given approval for agency staff and for overtime. But the problem is there are no people available to do the overtime because they are exhausted and the agencies are telling us they don’t have staff to provide agency cover,” Mr Kavanagh said.

Daily, there was a shortage of four to five nurses at the Galway unit and staff could not cope with the number of admissions, he said.

“It’s unsafe for patients, it’s unsafe in terms of their physical safety and their care, and it’s unsafe in terms of the staff themselves. This is a dispute that’s about safety and care of staff and patients.

“We don’t have the community teams, we don’t have the psychiatric intensive care units, and the predominant locus of service is actually based in the acute unit with not enough service in the community to support it and it’s wholesale dangerous,” Mr Kavanagh insisted.

He described as “extraordinary” the absence of a secure ward at the psychiatric unit in the Galway hospital.