The main focus in the healthcare system is not on patient safety but on budgetary constraints and cost saving, the president of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation has said.
Addressing the union's annual conference in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, Claire Mahon said that when the emphasis was placed on savings the result was staffing shortages, equipment shortages and short cuts being taken.
"These kind of cutbacks can have a detrimental effect on patient health, progress and chances of survival," she said.
Unacceptable
Ms Mahon said the situation in Irish healthcare was critical and unacceptable.
However, she said Government Ministers and health service management continued to respond to the pressure of ill-informed, outside commentators who pushed for further cuts in staff and a downward adjustment of the existing skill mix. "This effectively means fewer qualified, regulated professionals on ward rosters."
Staffing levels
Ms Mahon said staffing levels in the Irish health service were far below those in the UK, despite the fact that those staffing levels in the UK had been shown to compromise patient care.
She said the report on the scandal involving health services in Mid-Staffordshire found patients there had been routinely neglected by a governing trust preoccupied with cost-cutting, targets and processes.
"I fear and I know you all fear that Mid-Staffordshire is happening in Ireland today and perhaps it has already happened."Ms Mahon also restated the union's boycott of the new graduate recruitment programme
