INMO demands urgent reforms

The “long goodbye” of the HSE before its abolition under Government health reforms is corrosive, damaging and inexcusable, the president of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has said.

In an address on the final day of its annual conference in Killarney, Sheila Dickson said the Government's proposed new structures involving hospital trusts, primary and continuing care trusts and an integrated care agency must be delivered by the Government without delay.

She said the Government’s reforms “must finally rid us of the expansive layer of senior management grades.

Ms Dickson said that money continued to be lost in the layers of bureaucracy and inertia that existed in the health system.

She criticised senior managers who have” no understanding” of how or where patients’ needs are met.

“Their only function, all too often, is to stifle, smother and diminish the autonomy, responsibility and authority of nurses and midwives,” she said.

Ms Dickson said the INMO would support every member who stated that staffing levels were inadequate to meet patient needs. “We will never accept the voice of nursing and midwifery being ignored.”