Patient services in the West will be hit if the planned lay-off of 169 workers by the Western Health Board (WHB) goes ahead, IMPACT warned this evening. The union¿s Assistant General Secretary Mr Shay Clinton also said he believed the first lay-offs could begin on Monday.
Talks between the health board and unions adjourned without progress this evening and will resume next Tuesday. A WHB spokeswoman described the discussions as "constructive".
But Mr Clinton told ireland.comthat his members would not be covering the work done by staff who had been laid off. He said he accepted that some work duties were only temporary and staff were employed on a short-term basis to reflect that but he said remaining staff would have a much increased work load if the WHB carried through with the plan to lay off 169 people.
"As far as IMPACT is concerned the work won't just go away, consultants will still need medical secretaries" he said. "The patient services will be affected ... in some hospitals there will be chaos," he warned.
Mr Clinton said when talks resume on Tuesday afternoon he will again argue that redundancies will be deferred "until full consultation had taken place.
He said his union's national health executive would be meeting on Monday and would be discussing the situation both in the western region and nationally.
Of the 169 planned lay-offs, around 120 are IMPACT members, SIPTU and the Irish Nurses Organisation are also part of the talks process.