Nurses in Letterkenny hospital to discuss industrial action

Nurses at Letterkenny University Hospital will be consulted by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) on a campaign of industrial action.

The news follows the worst week on record for overcrowding in Irish hospitals. On Tuesday, there were 931 people across the country without a bed – the highest daily number on record.

On Friday, LUH was the third most crowded hospital in the country with 42 people waiting on a bed.

At Cork University Hospital, there were 54 people awaiting admission and 50 at University Hospital, Limerick.

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The situation was described earlier in the week by INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, as 'an out and out crisis'.

“Our members are treating patients in the most undignified conditions,” Ní Sheaghdha said.

On Friday, the INMO Executive Council of the INMO, made up of working nurses and midwives, decided begin a period of consultation on a campaign of industrial action.

Nurses say they want safe staffing levels that are underpinned with legislation and clinical facilitation in all hospitals to ensure a safe skills mix.

“What has transpired this week in our hospitals was totally avoidable,” Ní Sheaghdha said.

“For too long nurses and midwives have been warning that we were going to see an overcrowding blackspot in January unless serious and meaningful action was taken.

“While many will try to laud the fact that we have seen a decrease of patients on trolleys from 931 to 535, we won’t be part of attempts to justify this as an improvement.

“Nurses and midwives expect and deserve to work in a safe practice environment in which they can deliver the safe and excellent care they are trained to provide.”

INMO President Karen McGowan said nurses and midwives are 'being asked to crisis manage a situation that is of our employers’ own making'.

“We know that levels of burnout are at an all-time high,” she said.

“We must now take whatever action is deemed necessary to ensure that we do not endure this level of danger in our workplaces in the coming months and years ahead on a continuous replay mode.”