Hospital facing Christmas staff crisis

A crisis is looming at University Hospital Waterford over Christmas as up to 100 shifts will have no staff cover, it has been claimed.

Psychiatric nurses protested for 90 minutes yesterday afternoon at St Luke’s General Hospital in Kilkenny and University Hospital Waterford to highlight ongoing overcrowding and a staffing crisis faced by patients at the two acute mental health admission units.

Members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) are demanding the provision of new and expanded community services, a more rigorous management of beds, long-stay beds, and “an end to understaffing to address the crisis in services in the Kilkenny and Waterford region”.