NURSES AT the emergency department at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick are to stage a four-hour work stoppage next Wednesday.
The proposed industrial action will take place between 1pm and 5pm.
The move by members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is in protest at what it describes as “appalling conditions for patients and the clinical safety risks”.
The INMO said it would maintain a nursing presence in the hospital’s emergency department over this four-hour period to cover “all unforeseen developments”.
The union said the clinical safety risks and poor conditions for patients were caused, among other reasons, as a result of the Government’s moratorium on the recruitment of registered nurses, the closure of beds – 100 in the acute hospital services and some 80 in community hospitals and nursing units – the failure of hospital reconfiguration plans in the midwest and budget cuts.
In a statement yesterday, INMO industrial relations officer Mary Fogarty said Minister for Health James Reilly should now intervene directly to ensure that safe, responsive and adequately staffed services were available for people in the midwest.
“Nurses working at the hospital have repeatedly raised their concerns in respect of the clinical safety issues with both the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) and senior HSE management.
“Unfortunately, due to the inability of both bodies to address the deplorable clinical environment now visible daily at the hospital, nurses are driven to publicly highlight the extremely serious situation through industrial action.”
She said the union had called upon the Hiqa, Bord Altranais (nursing board) and the Medical Council to inspect the MidWestern Regional Hospital and other acute hospitals to establish the impact on patient care and safe practice arising from continuous overcrowding.
The Health Service Executive in the midwest did not comment on the INMO plans yesterday.
Meanwhile, management at the hospital is also facing possible industrial action over conditions in the medical records department.
The trade union Impact said yesterday that if concrete proposals were not set out by the HSE on or before September 21st, with binding commitments to relocate to new safe premises, the union “may have no other option than to instruct members to commence industrial action, including strike action”.