All evening surgical operations at St Colmcille's Hospital in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, have been cancelled in a dispute over on-call payments for theatre nurses.
Yesterday members of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) refused to work on-call, and surgery after 4.30 p.m., which is usually emergency and therefore unscheduled, was cancelled. The East Coast Area Health Board diverted surgical accident and emergency ambulance calls to St Vincent's Hospital.
A spokesman for the board said the INO was seeking a renegotiation of the national nursing on-call rate, and the board could not negotiate national rates.
Ms Noreen Browne, industrial relations officer for the INO, said a 1999 Labour Court recommendation allowed employers to deal with the issue locally. "The central issue was that the board thinks it's OK to pay different rates for the same work," she said.
The East Coast Area Health Board says normal on-call duty is one night in five, and extra on-call is more than one night in five. Nurses were being offered £35 above the normal rate, and this was more than agreed in St Vincent's Hospital.
However, Ms Browne said "the normal rate for being on call is £13.30 before tax . . . Agency nurses are paid £45 for being on call and once they are called in they get £108 whether they work a full shift or not," she added.
