THE threatened nurses' strike may begin to affect patient services well before the strike deadline of February 10th. The Irish Nurses' Organisation wants hospitals to begin cancelling elective admissions and winding down outpatient services as soon as possible.
At a meeting with the Health Services Employers' Agency yesterday to discuss emergency cover during the strike, the INO called on hospital managements to stop elective admissions from February 3rd at the latest. It also asked that outpatient appointments be wound down so that patients do not receive routine appointments to attend after the strike starts.
The INO assistant general secretary, Mr Liam Doran, said last night the request was aimed at minimising disruption and inconvenience to patients and the general public.
Nursing unions and health service managements have agreed to initiate a series of meetings at local level to discuss how emergency cover will operate during the dispute, not just in hospitals but in residential homes and the community.
The INO is meeting the Irish Medical Organisation tomorrow and also hopes to meet the Irish Hospital Consultants' Association this week to agree guidelines on what constitute emergency cases.
If there are outstanding problems after meetings with local health managements, the IMO and IHCA, the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, is expected to meet the unions to finalise agreement on emergency cover.
Meanwhile, Mr Noonan has issued figures substantiating his claim that it would cost an additional £100 million to meet the INO claim. He says that shortening the staff nurse scale and giving nurses parity with Grade Five clerical and administrative workers in the health boards would cost £64.8 million.
It would cost another £20 million to adjust upwards the pay of ward sisters, matrons and other management staff. The cost of giving temporary nurses made permanent full incremental credits for past service would be £24.9 million, and the extension of a special qualifications allowance to midwives and sick children's nurses would cost £2.75 million.
The total comes to £109.64 million and would be additional to the £50 million already on offer. It includes no provision for comprehensive early retirement, which would cost another £50 million.
Meanwhile the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, has called for a resolution of the dispute. "This is a dispute I believe can and must be settled. That settlement must be within the freely negotiated and agreed framework for pay, industrial relations and the public finances," he said at the introduction of Partnership 2000 in Dublin Castle yesterday.
Afterwards the general secretary of the INO, Mr R.J. Madden, who discussed the situation briefly with Mr Bruton yesterday, welcomed his comments.