Nursing row - Health body was wrong to go public

If the Health Service Executive (HSE) felt it had serious grievances to vent with nurses it would have been more judicious to discuss them at a scheduled meeting next week with the Irish Nurses Organisation and SIPTU instead of going public.

To accuse nurses of preventing 1,800 operations from taking place because of irregular work practices, as the HSE has alleged against nurses at Limerick’s Mid-Western Regional Hospital, is very serious.

To the disinterested observer, such a charge would appear to be at variance with the public perception of health professionals as being completely dedicated to the patients they so assiduously serve.