INMO set to ballot members for industrial action today
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have announced that today, Monday October 14, they will begin balloting its members for industrial action.
The union is doing so due to ‘large gaps in the nursing and midwifery workforce that are impacting the ability of its members to provide safe care’.
A meeting of INMO representatives from around the country took place in Dublin on October 12 and heard how short staffing and HSE’s recruitment ban were creating very high-risk situations in the health sector.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation revealed that “many nursing posts in cancer, palliative, paediatric, and rehab care are being left vacant”, meaning staff have to work on days off, stay after their shift ends for longer, unpaid periods of times and deal with the public’s frustrations due to longer waiting times for services.
Speaking out before the ballot commences, INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha explained, “Care that is provided from the start of life until the end is now compromised due to the HSE’s so-called recruitment caps, which are a moratorium by any other name, nursing posts are remaining vacant in hospitals and in the community right across the country”.
“We know that there are severe gaps in staffing across maternity, oncology and palliative care in various acute hospitals across the country including Wexford General Hospital, Connolly Hospital, University Hospital Limerick, Cork University Hospital and Galway University Hospital. Prioritisation lists are now in place across many services due to vacant nursing and midwifery posts not being filled”.
“The recruitment freeze is having a detrimental impact on the provision of care. What we are seeing is a postcode lottery when it comes to vital start-of-life and end-of-life care, the removal of vital nursing and midwifery posts will only exacerbate this”.
The General Secretary added, “The filling of vacant posts in new regional health authorities is now based on who shouts the loudest, not clinical need. This is wrong, it is contrary to agreements trade unions have with the HSE and it will form the basis of our upcoming ballot of members. Patients who need care and those providing it to them deserve better”.
