Not surprised nurses choosing to strike

Greater chaos than usual in the emergency departments of seven hospitals across the country will be unavoidable when underpaid, understaffed, and overstressed nurses go on strike next Tuesday. Basically, their aim is to bring home to the Government, and the public, the impossible conditions they are working under while trying to care for patients.

Every year, thousands of patients admitted to emergency departments, invariably end up on trolleys in cramped corridors, sometimes languishing for hours and even days waiting to be moved to a ward where they generally receive the excellent treatment they have every right to expect.

Frustrated by the failure of hospital structures top-heavy with management, the nurses and midwives, who enjoy considerable public support, can be forgiven for resorting to industrial action to get their message across.

So bad is the situation at Tallaght Hospital that nurses claim the emergency departments there were operating on average with only 60% of the required staff resources.

Inevitably, the strike, involving two-hour rolling stoppages between 8am and 4pm, will have consequences for patients all day and into the evening.

Nurses have given an assurance that an emergency response team will be on stand-by nearby.

Sorting out the appalling mess of Ireland’s ailing health service will be the ultimate test of Health Minister Leo Varadkar’s much-vaunted leadership mettle.