Industrial action threat over hospital cutbacks

Siptu last night warned of industrial action if planned cutbacks at Ennis General Hospital are proceeded with by the Health Service Executive (HSE).

Before a nurses' meeting made up of Siptu and Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) members last night, a Siptu spokesman said: "If the planned cutbacks are widespread and whole, as we are led to believe, it raises the possibility of industrial action."

He said the planned cutbacks "are severe and unnecessary. There is a cutback of nurses' hours and there is also redeployment of nurses from outpatient services."

He added: "Ennis is the hardest hospital to be hit nationally and these are serious, serious impacts. The scale of the cutbacks will have a significant impact on patient care." A joint statement is expected today on the action to be adopted.

The temporary cutbacks are part of the national temporary staffing and budgetary restrictions announced by the HSE last week and is resulting in a number of key services at the hospital including X-ray and outpatients being reduced. It is also believed that cardiac clinics dealing with 100 outpatients is to close temporarily and nurses from that unit will be transferred back into the general hospital service.

The move to curtail services at the hospital follows the July announcement that its mammography service is to be removed, while leaks of a soon-to-be-published consultant's report anticipate that the hospital will lose its consultant led 24-hour A&E service.

Spokesman for the Ennis Hospital Development Committee, Cllr Brian Meaney, said last night: "Our belief is that this is the latest move to wind-down services at Ennis general being undertaken by stealth by the HSE." It is planning a mass rally on September 29th at Cusack Park.

In a statement, a HSE spokesman said "management at Ennis hospital are now discussing details of plans to maintain essential services".