The INMO has stated that despite their efforts to engage with HSE management on the matter of staffing, no substantive action has been taken to increase staffing in line with agreed safe staffing frameworks
Naas General Hospital(Image: PA Archive/PA Images)
Nurses at one of the country’s busiest hospitals will begin industrial action today in the form of a work-to-rule over what they describe as unacceptable and unsafe staffing.
Members of the Irish Nursing and Midwives Organisation will also hold a lunchtime protest outside Naas General Hospital with the union warning that industrial action could escalate if management does not act to resolve staffing issues.
The INMO has stated that despite their efforts to engage with HSE management on the matter of staffing, no substantive action has been taken to increase staffing in line with agreed safe staffing frameworks.
The union has also said that management has not filled maternity-leave vacancies, as well as a failure to increase staffing to meet an over 25 per cent increase in Emergency Department attendance at the hospital in the past three years. INMO Assistant Director of Industrial Relations, Bernadette Stenson said this has led to nurses working in unsafe conditions.
He added: “INMO members are dealing with immense pressure, unsafe conditions and continuous redeployment to different clinical areas in order to fill the most dangerous staffing gaps.
“The hospital’s ability to meet demand has become entirely dependent on our members stretching themselves to breaking point. They now have no choice but to highlight existing shortfalls by beginning a work-to-rule action.
“Nurses in Naas do not want to take this action, but they see no alternative if there is to be meaningful change in the hospital and significant measures taken to ensure their safety and the safety of their patients.”
Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) general secretary Phil NÃ Sheaghdha with INMO nurses(Image: Gareth Chaney / Collins Photo Agency)
INMO General Secretary Phil NÃ Sheaghdha said the HSE must ensure vacant posts are filled.
She added: “In the HSE’s own Service Plan for the year ahead, they celebrate the fact that they have made cost savings through ’employment controls’, yet the impacts of this are seen in Naas General Hospital where short staffing is a huge problem and highly-skilled theatre nurses are owed hundreds of hours of time back.
“This type of employment pattern is being replicated in hospital sites across the country. The HSE must now meaningfully engage and ensure funded posts are being filled.”
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