The massive vote by nurses and midwives for strike action over staffing levels presents two major challenges for the Government; one in relation to its public pay strategy and the other in its plans to deal with the hugely sensitive area of hospital overcrowding.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) believes that the Government is losing the battle to recruit new staff to work in a public hospital system which is already struggling to cope and to hold on to those already working there.
The union contends that previous recruitment drives aimed at attracting back young nurses and midwives who emigrated over recent years “failed miserably”.
It says the Health Service Executive (HSE) last year spent €250,000 on a recruitment campaign aimed at nurses working abroad. It succeeded in hiring about 80, and promptly lost half of them when they quickly left again.
The INMO now wants a series of “special measures” introduced to encourage recruitment and retention.
Hello money
In essence, it wants new financial incentives aimed at attracting nurses to work in the public system, and to encourage those currently there to remain in place.
It has not specially mentioned amounts, but has highlighted that some Irish private hospitals are offering “hello money” of up to €6,000 to newly-recruited nurses.
The HSE wants to hire more nurses, and is to hold a special recruitment fair over Christmas.
Minister for Health Simon Harris has promised new policies to enhance career pathways for nurses. However, it seems the INMO believes the main resolution to recruitment and retention difficulties will be financial.
Any suggestion of the introduction of special €6,000 payments for new or existing nurses would have serious implications for Government pay policy, already under serious pressure after the €50 million pay deal for gardaí. Any such payments would almost certainly lead to knock-on claims elsewhere.
Special measures
The INMO made clear on Thursday that it envisages its proposed talks on special measures for recruitment and retention of nurses would be separate to the planned negotiations next month aimed at addressing “anomalies” in pay for other public service staff arising from the recent deal for gardaí.
Separate negotiations on a successor to the current Lansdowne Road accord are due to commence on foot of the report of the new Public Service Pay Commission after Easter. However, any new payments from such a deal would be unlikely to materialise until 2018.
Whether nurses would be prepared to wait that long for new financial incentives remains to be seen.
If the planned industrial action goes ahead it will almost certainly also worsen the serious problem the Government is facing over hospital overcrowding.