A&E departments face chaos after nurses vote for strike
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said there was overwhelmingly support — 92% — for work stoppages in 25 emergency departments and that its members were walking out as a last resort.
The industrial action will take place from Tuesday, December 15, over two to three hours and will roll across several hospitals.
Health Minister Leo Varadkar said the INMO ballot was disappointing particularly when the Emergency Department Task Force Plan was beginning to take effect.
“While there is a long way to go, there are 20% fewer people on trolleys than on this day last year,” Mr Varadkar said yesterday.
He pointed out that 197 hospital beds had opened across the country over the last two months and another 44 were due to open in the next two weeks.
There were also 759 more nurses in the health service than this time last year.
“Industrial action won’t get a single patient off a trolley and we should all be focused on implementing the Task Force Plan,” said Mr Varadkar.
The HSE said it would be seeking the intervention of the Workplace Relations Commission as soon as possible to avoid industrial action taking place.
The INMO said the HSE would be notified about the strike action to be rolled out on December 15 over a two-hour period in each hospital group, bar one.
Stoppages will take place throughout the day in the Mercy Hospital in Cork, Beaumont and Tallaght in Dublin, Waterford Regional Hospital, Cavan General Hospital, University Hospital Galway, and Midland Regional Hospital, Tullamore.
The exception is the University of Limerick Hospitals group, where no strike will take place because the group has only one emergency department.
Strike action involving the remaining emergency departments will take place in the middle of January.
All emergency department nurses would be involved in the strike action, with the exception of a standby emergency response team, requiring the hospital, effectively, to go off emergency call.
However, nurses will leave the picket immediately and return to their posts if a major issue arose.
INMO general secretary Liam Doran said strike action was being taken as a last resort and after 10 years of discussions and broken promises.
He said resolving the dispute would require the recruitment of at least another 300 nurses, new health and safety regulations for A&Es and the implementation of escalation policies to minimise overcrowding.
