About 3,000 out-patient appointments scheduled for this week at hospitals in the South Eastern Health Board area have been cancelled as the region's 2,450 nurses go on strike.
The board covers Co. Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary.
Approximately 300 elective surgeries were also cancelled, almost a third of which were due to take place at Waterford Regional Hospital. The action by the 520 nurses employed there meant the cancellation of approximately 90 elective admissions, 1,500 out-patient appointments and 200 day cases.
There were no nursing pickets on Waterford Regional Hospital yesterday, as the nurses agreed to increase the numbers on call for emergencies, due to the absence of care assistants, who are among the 300 ATGWU members currently engaged in an unofficial dispute with the South Eastern Health Board.
Other hospitals in the region which have been seriously affected include St Luke's, Kilkenny, where almost 500 appointments were cancelled, and Wexford General Hospital, where a similar number of patients have been affected.
Services at south Tipperary's two main hospitals, St Joseph's in Clonmel and Our Lady's in Cashel, were severely affected. St Joseph's, which on a normal day would have a nursing quota of approximately 44, had only 14 nurses reporting for duty.
Ms Breda Kavanagh, the general manager of St Joseph's and Our Lady's, said that everything had gone smoothly on the first day of the strike. The general public and hospital staff had been co-operative and there were no complaints.
She said that the number of patients attending casualty was quite low, which meant that, where possible, GPs were not referring patients to the hospital and people were staying away.