[ The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the
country’s main nursing union, has demanded legislation that would
require minimum staffing levels in hospitals and threatened to strike
if the Government does not agree.]
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STRIKE THREAT AS NURSING UNION DEMANDS LEGAL MINIMUM STAFFING LEVELS
 
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Pat Leahy, Emmet Malone, Jennifer Bray
January 7, 2023
Irish Times
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_ The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the country’s
main nursing union, has demanded legislation that would require
minimum staffing levels in hospitals and threatened to strike if the
Government does not agree. _

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The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), the country’s
main nursing union, has demanded legislation that would require
minimum staffing levels in hospitals and threatened to strike if the
Government does not agree.

Amid an overcrowding crisis in hospital emergency departments, the
union’s executive met in emergency session yesterday and decided to
begin a process of consultation in advance of a possible campaign of
industrial action.

The union said the move was “in pursuance of safe staffing levels
that are underpinned with legislation and clinical facilitation in all
hospitals to ensure a safe skills mix”.

A spokeswoman for the union said the Government already had a “safe
staffing” policy that required minimum numbers of nurses in hospital
departments, but those were routinely ignored. The INMO now wants the
safe staffing policy enshrined in legislation with penalties for
hospitals that fail to meet its requirements.

The union also wants additional on-the-job training for nurses, which
it describes as “clinical facilitation”.

The INMO said that it has been in discussions with the Department of
Health and the HSE in recent months, but without agreement, and it was
now taking this step as a response to the crisis in emergency
departments.

The union also announced a ballot for strike action over pay last
summer, but later accepted a pay deal offered by the Government.

“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.”

Speaking to the The Irish Times on Friday evening, Phil Ní Sheaghdha,
the union’s general secretary, said the process will be “what it
says on the tin, a consultation” but that the fact nurses and
midwives would be discussing the possibility of industrial action was
a sign that “all of the negotiations and our attempts to address the
situation have failed”.

“We have been asking the Government since July to address the
intolerable conditions being experienced by our members and by
patients and we have been asking for a multiyear plan since 2017, but
we have still not received one and we know that if we are going to
successfully address the huge challenges facing our healthcare system,
you have to plan in advance.”

As it is, she said, “we have Government policy documents that set
out targets for how many nurses and other healthcare professionals you
need to safely run the system and they are not being met”.

The substantial growth in HSE staff numbers in recent years cited by
ministers, she said, had only been due to a dramatic growth in HSE
services and did not actually address the underlying and continuing
problems being experienced by nurses due to staffing levels.

Responding to the potential for industrial action by the INMO,
Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said: “What we need to do is
listen very carefully. There are a lot of very encouraging things
happening in the profession of nursing and midwifery. The safe
staffing levels are being rolled out around the country. Over the last
three years there are about 4,500 more nurses and midwives in the HSE
than there were. So we are recruiting at record levels. What I want to
see is a doubling of college places for nursing and midwifery as well.
We need to listen very carefully to the nurses and midwives and be
responding to the things they are saying.”

He said the Department of Health would work with the HSE and hospitals
to find ways of having permanent healthcare professionals in these
roles. “The roles, broadly, are sanctioned. The challenge is
recruiting permanently into those roles. That is the kind of thing the
emergency department nurses need to be hearing,” he said.

[Pat Leahy]

Pat Leahy [[link removed]]

Pat Leahy is Political Editor of The Irish Times

[Emmet Malone]

Emmet Malone [[link removed]]

Emmet Malone is Industry and Employment Correspondent at The Irish
Times

[Jennifer Bray]

Jennifer Bray [[link removed]]

Jennifer Bray is a Political Correspondent with The Irish Times

* Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization
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