INO CONFERENCE:A CORK hospital will have to close a 30-bed ward for three months this summer if it is to be able to pay for costly cancer drugs for its patients, the annual conference of the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) was told yesterday.
Details of this and a raft of other bed and ward closures being implemented or already put in place at HSE or HSE-funded hospitals throughout the State in a bid to cut costs were outlined by nurses attending the three-day gathering in Killarney.
Eilish Corcoran, a nurse at the South Infirmary Victoria Hospital in Cork, said the 30-bed ward at her hospital was closing for three months as staff had been told the hospital had to save €70,000 a week. It had looked at various ways of saving money but in the end they were caught between a rock and a hard place. “In order to give oncology drugs to patients we have to close a ward,” she said.
Elaine O’Mahony, a nurse at Bantry General, said a 10-bed surgical ward had closed already at her hospital while nurse Mary Rogers said the HSE was talking about closing a medical unit at Merlin Park Regional Hospital in Galway.
Sligo nurse Ann McGowan said they had lost a 28-bed ENT ward at Sligo General Hospital and now a 16-bed stroke unit in the hospital was also threatened with closure. And Roscommon nurse Jenny O’Hagan said she was aware of bed closures also at Wexford General, St Luke’s Hospital in Kilkenny, and at South Tipperary General Hospital in Clonmel.
Meanwhile, delegates heard that plans for a range of cuts at Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe had been outlined to staff earlier this week. Only emergency surgery will be carried out in August and there are question marks over whether security will be provided at night.
Tony Fitzpatrick, industrial relations officer with the INO in the northeast, said a six-bed rehabilitation unit for older people next to Cavan hospital had also closed.
On considering the litany of cuts and the threat not to renew the contracts of any temporary nurses on foot of the Government’s recruitment embargo, and the threat to further cut nurses’ pay, delegates voted overwhelmingly to take whatever action was required to protect members’ rights and patient services, including, if necessary, all-out industrial action.
Dave Hughes, deputy general secretary of the INO, said if the Government could bail out the banks it could provide funds to allow nurses provide safe patient care. He also took a swipe at people like broadcaster Pat Kenny for referring to public service pensions as “Rolls Royce pensions”. He said Mr Kenny would know a lot about Rolls Royces.
Concern was also expressed by several delegates about whether hospitals like Limerick Regional will be able to cope with extra patients following the reconfiguration of acute hospital services in the midwest. Carol Morrisey, a nurse in an elderly care unit in Limerick, said that while on duty last weekend her hospital got a call to see if they had any blankets as Limerick regional was so busy it had run out of them.
The HSE said later an audit it conducted found there had been an average of just four extra patients per day attending the emergency department of Limerick Regional since the emergency departments at Ennis and Nenagh closed at night last month.
A number of delegates also criticised the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) which conducted the recent investigation into the situation at Ennis Hospital. Dublin nurse Claire Mooney said Hiqa was like a “bulldozer” that was only recommending closure after closure rather than asking why money hadn’t been put in to fix services. INO general secretary Liam Doran said he believed Hiqa was too close to the HSE and expressed disappointment that it was providing its inspection reports to the HSE before their publication so the HSE could be ready to “spin” in response to their findings.