Nurse group says Cork staffing 'unsafe'

Nurses and midwives today insisted they acted in the interest of mothers and babies when they refused to move to a new state-of-the-art maternity hospital in Cork yesterday.

The move to the the €75 million facility was put off for a week yesterday after talks involving unions and the Health Service Executive failed to break a deadlock in a row on staffing levels.

Today, one of the unions, the Irish Nurses' Organisation said its members refused to move to the new hospital because it said staffing was "unsafe, unsatisfactory and potentially injurious to mothers and babies".

The new hospital, an amalgamation of maternity services from Erinville, St Finbarr's and Bons Secours hospitals, is now due to open at noon next Saturday. In the meantime, discussion will continue between the HSE, the INO and Siptu.

The INO has consistently rejected the use of student midwives to bring up staff numbers at the new hospital to recommended levels, even though the HSE points out that student midwives are fully qualified general nurses and are used in other Irish teaching maternity hospitals.

This week the Labour Court ruled in favour of the HSE, saying that nursing staff should co-operate with the opening of the hospital. However, the INO has accused the HSE of misrepresenting the situation when it said it had 375 midwives available when it had only 315.

HSE chief Professor Brendan Drumm said yesterday he was "dismayed" at the delay in opening the new state-of-the-art facility. Prof Drumm said the number of midwives employed at the new hospital would be higher than previous staffing levels in Cork, the highest in the country and among the highest in the world.

He also said the new staffing levels had been accepted by consultants and midwifery management and buy full time officials of the INO.

But in a statement today the INO hit out at a "catastrophic failure by management, to fulfil its responsibilities, to both the users and providers of obstetric services in Cork".

"Exercising their professional judgement in the interests of the patients they serve every day, they collectively decided that it was preferable, notwithstanding the physical attractiveness of the new unit, to remain in the three existing facilities, which have served the mothers and babies of Cork well for many years, until the staffing issue has been resolved and rectified," the statement said.