NURSING LEADERS have told Health Service Executive management in the west that beds in hospitals in Mayo and Sligo will have to be closed from tomorrow as a result of reductions in staffing levels.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said HSE management had maintained it will not replace student nurses who are scheduled to end a 36-week placement period in hospitals in the region over the next fortnight.
The union’s general secretary Liam Doran said yesterday that the replacement of these nurses formed part of an agreement reached with the HSE. He said that as part of this deal the nurses on placement were to be replaced in part by other staff nurses who would be taken on.
He said the issue had been discussed at the Labour Relations Commission and was due to go before the Labour Court, but that management had refused to allow for the replacement of the nurses, who were on placement pending a recommendation by the Labour Court.
Mr Doran said hospitals in Mayo and Sligo would be affected by the ending of the scheme from tomorrow. Other hospitals will be affected by the reducing staffing numbers over the next week or so as nurses on placement go back to college.
He said beds or wards would have to close as a result of the reduced staffing levels to avoid unsafe levels of care in the hospitals concerned.
Staffing cutbacks as a result of the planned ending of the student nurse placement scheme in the west were separate to other cost-containment measures being discussed in a bid to tackle a potential €91 million overrun in the region, he added.
Today is the deadline for the completion of talks between unions and management at local level in HSE West in a bid to agree cost-containment measures.
Mr Doran yesterday described the local talks as “disappointing”. He said there had been a lack of imagination on the part of management, which was also oblivious to the implications of the cuts on services.
Other union leaders have said that while progress has been made in the local talks in some areas, there had been limited movement in others.
Late last week, talks between management and unions at Letterkenny General Hospital collapsed.
Trade union Impact said in a statement the talks had broken down “after HSE management trebled the amount of cuts it is seeking from €390,000 to €1.2 million”.
Impact official Richy Carrothers said: “Local union representatives and their full-time officials at Letterkenny General dedicated many hours to these talks, aimed at protecting jobs and services.
“But at the 11th hour the HSE decided to move the goal posts, undermining the progress that had been made,” he added.
“Over the last six weeks the HSE had been seeking savings of €390,000 in the Letterkenny General pay bill, a figure they confirmed at two Labour Relations Commission hearings in Galway on the 3rd and 13th August.
“The unions were in the space that we were willing to do our bit yet again. But the HSE came back to us looking for pay savings of €1.2 million.”
Other union leaders said that in some parts of the region, management had refused to set out cost-containment measures in writing.