Nursing union leaders hailed yesterday's one-hour work stoppage at South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel as a success as hospital management said it had been handled relatively well by the hospital despite some 28 procedures having to be cancelled.
An estimated 350 members of the INO and the PNA attended the hour-long protest at the entrance to the hospital where they heard union leaders call on Minister for Health Mary Harney and the HSE to grant their demands for better pay and a 35- hour working week.
According to Liz Curran, INO industrial liaison officer for the southeast, about 150 INO members stopped work at the 267-bed general hospital at 11am and joined off-duty INO staff and PNA members from nearby St Luke's Psychiatric Hospital in the protest. A further 100 INO members from elsewhere in the southeast including Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, and a large contingent from Waterford, travelled to Clonmel to show their support.
Ms Curran said the INO had put in place contingency plans with HSE management which saw night staffing levels maintained on all wards with a response team of eight to 10 nurses on standby at the protest to attend any emergency at A&E, intensive care and maternity units.
"We are very pleased with the turnout and I think it sends a very clear message to the Government about the unity and determination felt by our nurses and midwives and the necessity of having our legitimate pay claims resolved," said Ms Curran.
INO deputy general secretary Dave Hughes said a HSE figure, that nurses earned €56,000 a year on average, was based on a crude division of the €2.2 billion annual nursing bill by 40,000 nurses, which failed to take account of pension and employer costs.
This was "black propaganda" put out by the HSE and the best way that nurses could fight it was to show their loyalty and commitment to their patients and refuse to break that bond no matter how long the dispute went on.
"The Government and employers should not take the fact that nurses and midwives will not leave or desert their patients as a weakness - that is our strength and we will not be taunted or bullied into pulling everybody out," Mr Hughes said.
Richie Dooley, HSE Hospital Network Manager Acute Hospitals South East, said the stoppage had been managed well in the circumstances and he thanked doctors and nurses who helped to keep the outpatient department and A&E operating.
Mr Dooley said that 28 general surgical and medical procedures had been cancelled. All 28 patients were given new appointments within two weeks.
Some 60 to 100 people turned up for various diagnostic procedures which had to be delayed because of the stoppage, Mr Dooley added, and although it was handled well, increasing industrial action would inevitably be hugely disruptive to patients.
