Nurses angered at health cutbacks

More than 1,000 beds have now been closed at hospitals across the State, the annual conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives…

More than 1,000 beds have now been closed at hospitals across the State, the annual conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) was told today.

The union’s general secretary Liam Doran said these cuts, in addition to cuts in frontline posts caused by the embargo on recruitment in the public sector, were impacting on patient care. Nobody other than HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm believed the country could do with less beds, he said.

He added that the INMO had learned this morning that additional bed closures were planned for Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital in coming days. The hospital later confirmed 52 beds are to be closed to cut costs. The hospital had its budget slashed by €19 million this year.

Mr Doran said 1,900 nursing and midwifery posts have already been lost from the health service over the past two years and under the Croke Park pay proposals another 6,000 frontline posts will be lost over the next three years and over 3,500 acute hospital beds will close. He said the union has recommended to its members, who begin voting on the proposals next week, that they reject the deal as it was bad for patients and bad for the health service.

READ MORE

The INMO will put an alternative plan for cost savings to its members on the second day of its annual conference in Trim tomorrow. This will include ensuring admission of patients on the day of their surgery becomes the norm, developing clear protocols and pathways for the treatment of patients, optimising the use of emergency services by directing agreed patient groups to alternative services which can meet their needs such as minor injury units and reducing dependency on specialist centres by carrying out investigations and patient follow up in the community.

INMO president Sheila Dixon said the cutbacks which have been implemented to date were having a disastrous impact on patient care and nurses were “genuinely fearful not only for their own future, but also that of patients they care for”.

She added that the cuts also coincided with an increase in the numbers of patients on trolleys in hospital emergency departments.

She said there were 1,138 more patients on trolleys between January and April this year than over the same period in 2006, when the overcrowding in emergency departments prompted Minister for Health Mary Harney to declare the problem a national emergency.

The president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union, Linda Silas, warned the Government against repeating the mistakes of the previous recession. She said this could lead to large numbers of highly trained Irish nurses emigrating, never to return.

Over 300 delegates are attending the INMO’s three day conference, which will be addressed by Ms Harney on Friday.