Nurses in the emergency department at Cavan General Hospital say they will withdraw from clerical and other non-nursing duties from tomorrow.
Meanwhile, nurses at St Columcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, are balloting this week on action which could mean that all surgery will have to be diverted to St Vincent's University Hospital after 4.30 p.m. daily.
According to Ms Patsy Doyle, industrial relations officer with the Irish Nurses' Organisation, the emergency department at Cavan is extremely busy, with over 20,000 visits annually.
Nurses say management has failed to provide sufficient nursing and support staff to deal with the situation. Nurses find themselves performing clerical, portering, security and other non-nursing tasks.
Tomorrow's action, if it goes ahead, will see nurses withdrawing from these tasks to force management to increase staffing. The North Eastern Health Board said it did not want to comment as talks were continuing. Nurses were meeting last night to consider the latest management proposals.
In St Columcille's, nurses have been in dispute with management for almost three months over what they regard as excessive levels of on-call duty. This means that theatre nurses who have completed their normal rosters may have to ensure for days afterwards that they are within 30 minutes of the hospital, according to the INO.
Industrial action has meant that on some evenings ambulances have had to be diverted to St Vincent's University Hospital. If nurses vote for escalation this week, all out-of-hours surgery could be affected.
The East Coast Area Health Board has appealed to the nurses to drop their action and to accept an offer made at the Labour Relations Commission. However, the two sides have been unable to agree on what the offer was.
Staff and bed shortages have led to the cancellation of planned surgery at St Vincent's University Hospital, the hospital board was told recently. The intensive care, high-dependency and coronary care units have all had to cope with shortages. A total of 2,033 people had spent more than a year on the waiting list for treatment at the hospital by the end of April, compared with 2,291 in the same period last year.
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