The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) is to ballot members for industrial action, up to and including strikes, over staffing issues.
The body’s national executive committee sanctioned the move on Thursday “in response to the staffing crisis in the mental health services”.
The executive will recommend a vote in favour of industrial action in the ballot, which will be conducted nationally over the next two weeks.
PNA general secretary designate Peter Hughes said “all reasonable efforts” to get the HSE to “acknowledge and respond meaningfully” to the staffing crisis had failed.
‘The figures are stark with up to 600 nursing vacancies currently and a further 400 to arise from forecasted retirement across the mental health services,” he said.
“The shortage of nurses is at crisis proportions and the Government and the HSE have shown indifference to the forecasted staffing needs of the mental health services.
“The result is that staff have been left struggling just to maintain current acute and community services with no prospect of investing in the development of new services.
‘The PNA has no faith in the HSE to guarantee a proper nursing workforce is put place for the mental health services or that the HSE strategies being pursued to recruit, retain and train nurses will meet the chronic staff shortages being faced now and in the coming years.”
