Health service management in the midwest has strongly criticised the level of cover to be provided by nurses tomorrow during a planned work stoppage at the emergency department in the largest hospital in the area.
The HSE said it had encountered "an extraordinary lack of cooperation in normal contingency planning for the stoppage which represented a new, unwelcome and potentially dangerous departure in industrial action".
Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) and Siptu are to take part in a four-hour work stoppage at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick between 1pm - 5pm tomorrow.
The action is being taken over what the nurses describe as "appalling conditions for patients and the clinical safety risks" arising from overcrowding in the unit.
In a statement this afternoon, HSE management in the midwest called on the nursing unions to call off the planned work stoppage.
Management maintained that the proposed level of cover in particular put forward by the nursing unions was "inadequate and unacceptable".
The HSE urged the public to avoid attending the emergency department at the hospital tomorrow afternoon except in cases of genuine need and to go to their GPs in relation to non-urgent issues.
The HSE said no useful purpose would be served by the planned industrial action. It said that it would "only exacerbate" the pressures being experienced by the hospital at Dooradoyle.
HSE midwest area manager Bernard Gloster said: "In a situation where extra funding is not, and will not be, available from the Government, and all concerned know this full well, it would make better sense to sit down and see how we can best utilise the resources we have. There is no prospect of overtime payments and agency nursing being restored."
"In this regard it is vital that we call focus on the solutions including the establishment of a new 24 hour acute medical assessment unit, the introduction of new rosters and redeployment of nurses to areas of greatest need in the hospital.
"New rosters become even more important in light of the need to maintain and improve services in a financially constrained context. Other areas on which we must focus include our skill mix and the need to reduce absenteeism."
In a statement this evening, the INMO said that its members involved in the planned industrial action in Limerick tomorrow would provide a safe level of care and would ensure that no patient was at risk as a consequence of the dispute.
It said the dispute flowed directly from management's failure to provide the required number of nursing staff to ensure, on a 24/7 basis, safe care was available to all patients attending the emergency department in the hospital.
"To suggest, as management has, that the issue of safe care can be addressed by adjustments to rosters, skill mixes and greater flexibility is simply untrue and confirms how detached management, in this hospital, is from the frontline and the needs of patients."
The union said that the emergency department in Limerick was "unsafe" and the level of nursing staff available to provide care was below the standard in other locations.
"The INMO has repeatedly objected to the HSE supplying overtime and agency nurses as a solution to this issue; the HSE failed until yesterday morning, having been prompted repeatedly by the INMO, to attend any contingency meeting; and the Mid Western Regional Hospital Limerick has, on a daily basis, extra trolleys and beds on already full
in-patient wards and still the Emergency Department is overcrowded."
"This is obviously not a solution."
Siptu members refuted the HSE's claims that they had been unavailable to discuss contingency safety plans for the duration of the work stoppage.
Oganiser Jim McGrath said: "At all times nursing staff have been willing to meet with management to discuss contingency safety plans. This dispute is about protecting patient safety; two weeks ago we notified hospital management that nursing staff voted for a work stoppage on this date in order to highlight dangerous levels of patient overcrowding and understaffing in the Accident and Emergency Department."
The INMO said it will maintain a nursing presence in the department for the duration of the work stoppage to ensure "unforeseen developments" can be responded to immediately.
The organisation has called for an inspection of the hospital, and other acute hospitals, to establish the impact on patient care and safe practice arising from overcrowding.
Industrial relations officer Mary Fogarty this morning called on the Minister for Health to intervene.
"The INMO now believes that, in order to protect patients and staff in the Mid Western Regional Hospital, direct intervention is required, by the Minister for Health, to ensure safe, responsive and adequately staffed services are available for people in the Mid West area," she said.