NURSES' ORGANISATION CONFERENCE:ANGRY NURSES gave Minister for Health Mary Harney a cool reception when she attended the annual conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation in Trim yesterday.
A number of delegates confronted her as she left the conference centre about the lack of jobs for the more than 1,000 nurses who will be graduating this year, as well as the recruitment embargo which they claim is crippling services.
Sheila Dickson, the organisation’s president, told Ms Harney that nurses were unhappy about how they had been treated by the Government.
Despite the fact that nurses had not contributed to the difficulties, the Government had seen fit to cut their pay twice over the past year while it refused to require other people in society, with much greater wealth, to pay their fair share.
“None of us underestimates the scale of the problems that we now face. Although many of us may work in the public sector, a category of worker that in the past 18 months has been vilified, criticised, demeaned and insulted by the know-it-alls that populate the media in this country, we all live in families that have encountered unemployment, that understand what short-time working means, and readily understand what it is like to be worried about the mortgage, our children’s future and, fundamentally, our access to quality healthcare.
“People in this room, Minister, are public servants providing a great service to the communities in which we live. In the past 12-18 months your Government has shown a lack of respect for, and a complete inability to listen to, all of us and this cannot continue.”
MS Dickson said while nursing posts remained vacant due to the recruitment embargo, “the HSE seems able to fill senior general management posts immediately”.
The Minister stressed the country was going through a very painful period. Asked afterwards about the cool reception she received, she said: “Look, nurses are angry. Public servants generally are angry with the cutbacks in pay and the pension levy and also, of course, the moratorium.
“It’s not an easy time for Government or for public servants. A lot of people are enduring huge pain across this economy because we are spending €20 billion a year more than we are making, and therefore, unfortunately, we have had to have cutbacks.”
She welcomed the Impact union’s decision to recommend acceptance of the Croke Park deal. She stressed there was “no plan B” despite a recommendation by the organisation to its members to reject the deal.
She said the Croke Park agreement was “the best I believe we can do”, and everyone needed to reflect on that.
Nurses ‘must resist’ public inquiry plan
FITNESS TO PRACTISE:TWO NURSES have committed suicide over the past three years as a result of fitness to practise inquiries, the INMO annual conference was told yesterday.
The claim was made by Clare Treacy, director of social policy and administration with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), who said pressure on nurses would be even greater if fitness to practise inquiries were held in public, as proposed in the Nurses and Midwives Bill 2010 published last month.
She said 44 INMO nurses were reported to An Bord Altranais, the regulatory body for the nursing profession, last year up from 19 in 2006.
The stress nurses went through when they were reported was immense, with some nurses “inconsolable”, she said.
The two nurses who committed suicide were not INMO members but Ms Treacy said she represented another nurse who died of a heart attack within hours of receiving details of the book of evidence in a case being pursued against her by An Bord Altranais.
She said it would not be in the public interest for fitness to practise inquiries to be held in public. It would lead to details of cases being published in newspapers, including allegations made against nurses, before any finding in each case had been made. “That is something we genuinely must resist,” she said.
She added that the eventual findings of fitness to practise cases were already published by the nursing board on their website. “The public interest is well served with the current structures.”
Annette Kennedy, director of professional development with the INMO, also said attempts in the new Bill to end self-regulation of the nursing profession by putting a lay majority on An Board Altranais for the first time should also be resisted. She said nobody could accuse the current nursing board of not protecting the public so why Minister for Health Mary Harney would want to put a lay majority on the board “beats me”.
Ms Harney said she hoped the new legislation would be passed before the summer.