Healthcare must value the carers - Nurses work-to-rule action at CUH

THE work-to-rule by nurses at Cork University Hospital is not about money but patient safety. Nonetheless, they remain the most overworked and underpaid among frontline HSE staff and often work long, punishing hours for relatively little pay.

The dispute concerns staffing levels at the oncology/ radiotherapy unit. Seven positions, including ward nurses and care assistants, are currently to be filled in the unit.

While the 21 oncology nurses involved have accepted an invitation to further talks at the Workplace Relations Commission, their action will continue in an effort to highlight their safety concerns over staffing levels.

The executive management board at the hospital said it is extremely disappointed by the industrial action, calling it ‘disproportionate and unwarranted’.

That’s all very well but what is really disproportionate and unwarranted is the HSE’s continuing failure to address vacancies in frontline staff while filling management positions. Earlier this year, it was revealed that the number of senior management within the service has returned to boom-time levels while the number of patients left on trolleys in emergency departments continues to rise.

What the nurses at the CUH are doing mirrors the INMO’s ‘trolley watch’ service which for the past 13 years has tracked the number of patients who, due to bed shortages, are left lying on hospital trolleys in emergency departments.

Launched in April 2003, it is a count of the number of additional patients on beds, trolleys or chairs, on inpatient wards above the stated complement of that ward or unit and provides a graphic picture of hospital overcrowding.

In contrast to hospital consultants whose focus appears to become the highest paid in Europe, the nurses’s concerns have — and continue to be — about patient safety and about giving those in their care the best service possible.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that the HSE may have to pay consultants up to €700 million in compensation for failing to pay wage increases that were due as far back as 2008.

Under a new contract agreed that year, They were to be paid an annual salary of up to €240,000 but part of the pay rise was withheld due to the economic crisis. However, even without that increase, OECD figures show that our consultants remain among the best paid in the world.

At the same time, some nurses are on the breadline, with many earning less than their assistants and support staff.

A heartrending account by a student nurse surfaced on Facebook earlier this week. The overworked mental health nurse, who is a single mother, wrote that her work has left her “broken, defeated, deflated and soul destroyed”.

Her post stated: “Today, yet again like so many other times, I have broken down crying wondering why the hell I bothered pursuing a degree in nursing.

“Also worrying about how I am going to pay for food for the rest of the week as I only have €25 and need to buy petrol.”

How can a society expect good healthcare for those who need it if it doesn’t value the carers?