Maternity hospital - Nothing to do with money

Liam Doran, general secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), stated categorically yesterday that his members’ refusal to staff the new Cork University Maternity Hospital is not about money. Once the required staff is hired, he stated that the hospital would open immediately.

The Government has already spent €75m on the hospital, and is currently threatening to shelve the whole project for the remainder of 2007, if the hospital does not open by next Saturday. It would not be the first expensive facility that the Health Service Executive (HSE) has left idle; it would be another example of its monumental inefficiency.

Nurses and midwives are in a unique position on the front line, and their safety concerns should be a paramount consideration. Last week only 315 of the 375 nurses required had been hired, and the reluctance of the nurses to start under such conditions is understandable.

Health Minister Mary Harney and the HSE contend that the dispute is about more than staffing levels. The nurses had demanded between €3,000 and €5,000 each just to transfer to the new hospital, but their claims were rejected by the Labour Court, which suggested that they should only be entitled to an extra day’s leave.

As late as last Friday, however, the INO was still seeking a €1,000 payment for each nurse. The INO’s behaviour has clouded the issue, but the Minister and HSE can call the INO’s bluff by hiring the required staff.