About 150 staff members at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin, turned out today to protest at plans to cut up to 120 staff from the payroll, claiming the cuts would jeopardise the care of children there.
Staff who are members of the Impact trade union, as well as members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation, took part in the protest over the job cuts, which the health service insists are necessary to keep the hospital within its agreed budgets and staffing levels.
A spokesman for Impact said many staff, including physiotherapy staff on contracts, were concerned with the effects of the cuts.
Impact official Dessie Robinson said in a separate statement: “These cuts will hurt kids. You can’t slash a hospital budget by €7 million without cutting jobs. You can’t cut jobs without hurting services and lengthening waiting lists."
Impact said front line and vital support services across the hospital currently depend on temporary and agency staff, and that cuts here will directly affect services. “The hospital is not employing agency workers and temps to do nothing, so cuts in agency and temporary staff will hit services,” Mr Robinson said.
The union claims the HSE had failed to honour over 40 agreements struck with the union.
The Irish Nurses’ Organisation (INO) said today it has sought an “urgent meeting” with management at the hospital on the issue after it learned of the cuts in media reports earlier this week.
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INO industrial relations officer Albert Murphy said: “It is deplorable that there has been no consultation with the organisation regarding possible reductions in agency and temporary staff numbers and non-filling of vacant posts at the hospital in new cost-cutting measures.”
Mr Murphy said the INO will ask the hospital management at a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday to “detail the effects of this decision and to specify what services to sick children will be curtailed”.
“Depending on the outcome of that meeting the INO will be considering all options available including a complaint to the Labour Court,” he said.
Mr Murphy claimed the Health Service Executive had not complied with minimum consultation requirements under EU legislation and the national partnership agreement Towards 2016in deciding on the cutbacks.
“Unless adequate funding is provided for Crumlin it is going to cause severe difficulties for Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital which is the primary referral centre for children in Ireland.” Mr Murphy said.
“There are already inadequate nurse staffing levels in Crumlin and if this goes unchecked it will compromise patient safety and increase the workload on nursing and other medical staff in the hospital.”
Taoiseach Brian Cowen yesterday defended the reduction of 120 temporary jobs at the Crumlin hospital.
Mr Cowen said the hospital was required to live within existing allocations. "Owing to the good work Crumlin hospital has been doing, and its important work nationally, an agreement was made to deal on a once-off basis with last year's overrun,'' said Mr Cowen.
Minister for Health Mary Harney said this week she believed the agreement on staffing between the HSE and the hospital “is sufficient to meet the requirements of those sick children over the course of 2008”.