THE Republic’s health service crisis is deepening after nurses in one of Dublin’s busiest hospitals announced plans to work to rule in protest over “unsafe staffing levels”.
Nursing staff at Beaumont Hospital yesterday confirmed plans to begin industrial action from December 16, refusing to do any non-essential or administrative work in medical and surgical wards.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation(INMO) said there were 45 vacancies in the affected divisions, leaving existing staff members struggling to provide adequate care for patients.
“Staffing levels have been decimated across the medical and surgical directorates and it is now impossible to provide a safe level of care to patients in these conditions," said INMO industrial relations officer Lorraine Monaghan.
The announcement came on the same week that the INMO announced that Emergency Department nurses throughout the south had voted overwhelmingly to industrial action next month, blaming chronic overcrowding and under-staffing.
Responding to news of the Beaumont action, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald tackled Tánaiste Joan Burton in the Dáil , saying: “This is not a dispute over pay. It is a dispute over patient safety… We are told that staff are close to burnout. Their workloads are impossible. They have been highlighting serious concern with management for some time. But nurse levels continue to fall - the situation continues to deteriorate.”
Separately, the INMO yesterday called for the Mater Hospital in Dublin to go off call amid severe overcrowding in the Emergency Department.
INMO spokesman Albert Murphy said there were currently 100 staff nurse vacancies in the Mater Hospital.
“The INMO is not satisfied that the hospital has adhered to the agreed escalation policy for dealing with severe overcrowding,” he added.
Meanwhile, the INMO and SIPTU suspended industrial action that had been due to begin the University Maternity Hospital in Limerick today, after an agreement was reached that will see 30 extra nurses and midwives recruited in the coming months.
Developments in the Beaumont and Mater hospitals came as the Republic’s health minister Leo Varadkar said the HSE’s Performance Report for September showed clear progress in terms of staffing levels.
“Staffing levels in the HSE rose by almost 3,000 between the start of the year and September. Some 2,000 of these were specifically working in hospitals with a further 500 in social care, and the remainder in other areas of the health service,” the minister said.
