INMO to ballot members for industrial action over unfilled posts – Home page

Kenneth Fox

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organization (INMO) has said that major gaps in the nursing and midwifery workforce are affecting the ability of its members to provide safe care.

The union will start voting its members for industrial action on Monday 14 October.

A meeting of INMO representatives from across the country, held at the Richmond Education Center in Dublin on Saturday 12 October, found examples of understaffed and very high risk situations that are now emerging due to the ban de facto HSE recruitment.

According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, many nursing posts in palliative, pediatric and rehabilitation care remain vacant.

They said it is leading to increasing demand from HSE management for staff to work on days off, remain for significant unpaid periods after a roster shift ends and deal with growing levels of frustration from the public who are waiting for more time for services.

Speaking ahead of the start of voting, INMO president Caroline Gourley said: “INMO members have provided us with example after example of positions not being filled when a colleague leaves or retires and that positions deemed essential under the ED agreement are not filled.

“While there is a framework for safe nursing staffing and skill mix, many of the positions measured as needed to provide safe care in this regard are not being filled.

“Many temporary vacancies are being left vacant due to leave, particularly maternity leave, which is leading to extremely high risk situations for patients and working conditions that compromise the health and safety of registered nurses and midwives.

“It is the expectation of the HSE that nurses and midwives will work beyond their shift end time, volunteer for extra shifts on days off and that this ‘goodwill’ is expected to continue during this winter, INMO representatives have now made it very clear that this will not be the case.

“The HSE has designed a time-consuming and laborious application process for safety-critical posts under the pay-and-numbers strategy, which is designed to prolong the recruitment process.”

He said they are now seeing cases where it is taking up to twelve months to hire much-needed nurses and midwives for vacant positions.

Meanwhile, INMO general secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: “End-of-life care is now being compromised because of the HSE’s so-called recruitment caps, which are a moratorium by any other name, nursing positions remain vacant in hospitals and in the community across the country.

“We know there are serious staffing gaps in maternity, oncology and palliative care in a number of acute hospitals across the country, including Wexford General Hospital, Connolly Hospital, University Hospital Limerick, University Hospital Cork and University Hospital Galway.

“There are now priority lists in many services because nursing and midwifery vacancies are not being filled.

“The hiring freeze is having a detrimental impact on the delivery of care. What we are seeing is a postcode lottery when it comes to early life and end of life care, the removal of vital nursing and midwifery posts will only exacerbate this.”