Cork health services may be cut, say nurses
Nurses in Cork have warned that services will have to be curtailed if the health crisis continues to “spiral out of control.”
July saw 1,079 patients waiting on trolleys in Cork University Hospital, with 58 admitted patients waiting for beds yesterday morning, according to the Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation’s Trolley Watch.
The union said Cork health services have been plunged into a crisis, due to a combination of problems, including record overcrowding, hundreds of vacant frontline positions, profound shortages in community nursing, and chronic recruitment and retention problems.
It said it had sought urgent engagement with the health service management and “will have to commence discussions on service curtailment, if urgent action is not taken.”
“In correspondence, the INMO has sought an urgent response from the South/South-West hospital management, to what it described as an ‘intolerable’ situation, requiring the lifting of budget and staffing restrictions,” the union said.
“The INMO also requested urgent action on bed capacity. The situation arises alongside concerns over midwife-to-patient ratios in Cork University Maternity Hospital, as well as ongoing talks at the Workplace Relations Commission, regarding staff shortages in community facilities throughout the South-West region.”
The union said conditions for patients and staff in CUH are “intolerable and unsafe”.
“Health service management must take tangible steps immediately to relieve the misery for staff and patients,” he said. "£The recruitment process is being delayed at the local level, leaving an already overcrowded hospital short-staffed.”
