THE IRISH Nursing Organisation has told Minister for Health Mary Harney the HSE is not working and is incapable of delivering the required service to patients.
Outgoing INO president Madeline Spiers said she recognised that Ms Harney and the Government had invested huge political capital in health reform. “However, I ask you to seriously reflect upon what has actually happened.
“We now have to face the reality that the HSE is an unwieldy bureaucracy, with layers of senior management slowing down decision-making, resulting in, among other things, a complete loss of autonomy and decision-making power at hospital and community care area levels.”
Ms Spiers said HSE cutbacks were “in front-line essential clinical services only, never in management”. Patients would get sicker, their life expectancy would be shorter and it would cost more to care for them. “As short-sighted policy, it is the worst sort of short-sighted policy,” she said.
Ms Spiers accused the HSE of spending tens of thousands of euro looking for bad news stories to undermine the INO during last year’s industrial dispute. The HSE approach towards nurses was “nothing short of disgraceful”.
“We will never forget the sustained efforts of the HSE over that seven-week period to find patients who had been neglected, and to spin in the media that our work-to-rule was causing serious harm and damage.”
Ms Harney told delegates no one could deny that progress was being made in health reform since the health board system was abolished, but change was always difficult. She was disappointed at the failure of many hospitals to agree the new roster, which would introduce the 37.5-hour working week for nurses. Following last year’s industrial dispute, the Government promised to reduce the working week to 37.5 hours by June 1st.
Ms Harney said the shorter working week was effectively a pay increase for nurses. She would hold a round-table meeting in UCD next Thursday with employer and union representatives from the locations that had failed to reach agreement in a bid to speed up the process.
Last night, Sheila Dickson from Killarney was elected INO president.
A young nurse was recovering yesterday after being head-butted by an abusive teenage patient while working a shift at the AE department at Cork’s Mercy University Hospital, Olivia Kelleher reports from Cork. The incident occurred at 10pm on Thursday.
A 17-year-old male was arrested and detained at the Bridewell Garda station in Cork.
The attacker was charged under the Public Order Act. He has been released on bail and will appear before the juvenile court next week.