Nurses' postcard protest on overcrowding

The Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) is stepping up the pressure on Tánaiste Mary Harney today over A&E overcrowding by launching a postcard campaign to highlight the issue.

The protest, part of the ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign against the number of people on trolleys in emergency wards across the country, is being launched at the INO’s head office in Dublin.

The postcards will be available on the organisation’s website and in A&E departments.

The INO is hoping thousands of patients, their relatives and members of the public will return the postcards, which will then be sent on to the Tánaiste.

According to the nurses union the crisis in emergency wards is as bad as it has ever been.

The second phase of their “Enough is Enough” campaign – which previously saw nurses holding lunchtime protests outside hospitals – comes as hundreds of people a day are on trolleys in A&E wards across the country.