A decision by nurses to take industrial action from next month is not motivated by a desire for pay increases, a union leader has insisted.
Liam Doran, general secretary of the Irish Nurses & Midwives Organisation (INMO), said the action was about securing greater numbers of staff and better ways to retain those currently working in public hospitals.
Mr Doran said the health service needed to match activity levels with staff levels, which he said had been decimated in recent years with numbers down by 5,000.
“The bottom line is we need more nurses,” he told Newstalk Breakfast. “There’s no point in lodging a pay claim. There is no inhibition on the HSE employing more nurses…We’ve had the worst trolley figures ever in January - 10,300.”
It was announced on Wednesday that nurses would engage in industrial action from March 7th, a move which is likely to lead to hospital bed closures and cuts to hospital services.
From that date, INMO members will no longer work overtime, will not cross-cover for other absent staff and will not redeploy to other parts of their hospitals. If the dispute remains unresolved, the planned action will escalate a week later to involve rolling work stoppages in hospitals and community services.
Waiting lists
All acute hospitals were likely to be involved on the first day of the stoppages, the union said. The action could add to waiting lists or increase the numbers on trolleys in emergency departments.
The threat comes after the INMO executive rejected as “completely inadequate” proposals put forward by health service management to deal with the recruitment and retention difficulties in the health service.
Minister for Health Simon Harris had promised to recruit 1,200 nurses this year as part of a new workforce plan.
The INMO said the recruitment proposals were “too little, too late” and that the approach to retaining existing staff was “flawed and shallow “.
Mr Harris and the Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said they were deeply disappointed with the decision of the INMO.
They said the oversight group for the Lansdowne Road pay agreement would meet on Thursday and they would make no further comment before then.
“Our members are no longer going to work in unsafe environments in the interests of patients and themselves,” Mr Doran said.
He said that the key message is to attract more nurses and midwives and to get the nursing workforce back up to 40,000.
“We were told last October that all graduates would be offered permanent contracts [AND]that hasn’t happened. Some were offered three month contracts. ..We are not competing with the private sector who are offering much better packages.”
