Nurses have accused the Government and the Health Service Executive of compromising patient safety by refusing to tackle the issue of over-crowding in hospital emergency units.
Emergency department staff from the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick today staged a rally outside the Dáil to highlight the issue.
Nurses at the hospital have already held three work stoppages in protest at what they say is the “unacceptable clinical risk” to patients posed by over-crowding and inadequate bed capacity.
The nurses, who are members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) and Siptu, said the number of patients waiting on trolleys had risen by 54 per cent in two years.
They also claimed the HSE was “inexplicably” refusing to redeploy nurses from other areas to the Limerick unit as provided for under the current Public Service Agreement.
INMO spokeswoman for the Mid West Region, Mary Fogarty said the protest was about patient care and “the management of risk, nothing more”.
“The intolerable working environment, when we have proposals on the table capable of immediately reducing this risk, is inexplicable and the HSE owes it to the general pubic, and their staff, to explain why they will not implement the required measures immediately,” she said.
The nurses earlier delivered letters of protest to the HSE’s executive’s headquarters in Dr Steevens Hospital in Dublin as well as to the Department of Health and the Taoiseach’s office in Government Buildings.
Talks at the Labour Relations Commission aimed at resolving the dispute ended unsuccessfully last week with both sides blaming each other for the breakdown in negotiations.
The INMO and Siptu blamed management for the impasse while management accused the unions of misrepresenting what took place in the talks.
The HSE maintained that unions would not agree to roster changes for staff in the hospital which could have eased much of the pressure on the unit.
However, Siptu’s mid-west nursing organiser Jim McGrath said today staff were committed to resolving the dispute.
“This is a resource issue. Without resources, there cannot be changes in rosters. The changes that are necessary are the proper allocation of resources.” “It’s Siptu’s position always that rosters are agreed and not imposed,” he added.
People Before Profit TD for Dún Laoghaire Richard Boyd Barrett claimed the crisis in the emergency department at the Limerick hospital was a direct result of the downgrading of the emergency departments at Ennis and Nenagh.
“The Labour/Fine Gael Government are now threatening to similarly downgrade nince further A&Es across the country,” he claimed, and urged members of the public to support the nurses in their fight.
