Hospital in talks over nurses' protest action
Discussions are taking place at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin today to minimise the number of non-emergency procedures that will be affected by industrial action taken by nursing staff tomorrow.
As the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO) and Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) step up their campaign for better pay and working hours, management at St Vincent’s stressed that planned surgery cancellations will be decided on a clinical basis, with patients informed as soon as the situation is clarified.
Talks are currently taking place on site with representatives from the INO, which has stressed that operations will be disrupted during the strike period while all essential or emergency nursing services will be maintained.
“If there are cancellations, these will be decided by the doctors on the basis of clinical priority,” said a hospital spokesman.
“We appreciate that the uncertainty is distressing for patients and their families and wish to assure them that we are exploring every avenue to minimise the number of cancellations.”
The union’s 40,000 nurses and midwives want a pay increase of 10.5%, outside of the national benchmarking process, and a 35 hour working week.
However the Health Service Executive, which has said it is willing to resume discussions, has refused to meet demands.
The strike action began last week after three weeks of negotiations between health chiefs and unions collapsed during crunch talks at Government buildings.
Nursing staff nationwide started a work-to-rule, refusing to carry out non-essential duties including answering telephones, working computer systems and attending meetings.
The move was followed with the announcement of one-hour demonstrations between 11am and midday tomorrow at St Vincent’s Hospital in the capital as well as South Tipperary General Hospital, Clonmel and South Tipperary Mental Health Services.
A second series of short work stoppages is threatened on Friday.
St Vincent’s said that it hopes out-patients and day patients services will continue as usual tomorrow, but despite delays expected all patients are advised to attend appointments on time and not to contact the hospital in advance.
People planning on attending the emergency department are urged to visit their GP instead where possible, with those with minor problems warned to expect long delays.
“The hospital management wish to apologise in advance for any delays and to thank patients for their cooperation,” added the spokesman.
“We are requesting that phone enquiries regarding the welfare of in-patients, and about routine appointments, be kept to a minimum.”
