ICTU should now support the nurses’ campaign to end A&E crisis

THE news that the Health Service Executive (HSE) in the north-east is to cut spending by nearly €10 million in a bid to stay within budget will exacerbate the already serious crisis in the service there, especially the scandal of patients lying on trolleys in A&E wards.

It will also have ripple effects on hospitals in neighbouring regions such as the already over-stretched Beaumont hospital in Dublin, as patients try to seek urgent medical treatment outside the north-east. It is proposed to put on hold funding for a second oncologist at Drogheda in order to save €600,000; to reduce agency nurses, and only to replace equipment that is absolutely necessary. & The ICTU should now throw its weight behind the INO’s ‘Enough is Enough’ A&E campaign.

Given the widespread anger about the state of the health service, there is no reason why a nationwide protest would not, at the very least, match the turnout for the Irish Ferries protest last December.