Beaumont nurses to ballot on strike action

[Posted: Fri 07/05/2010 by Olivia Fens www.irishhealth.com]

Delegates at the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) annual conference have unanimously supported the decision of 900 nurses in Beaumont Hospital to ballot for industrial action.

The Beaumont nurses are taking the action in response to the hospital's decision to place beds on corridors and behind doors throughout the hospital in an attempt to manage A&E overcrowding, the INMO said.

Beaumont announced yesterday that it was closing 52 beds as a savings measure. The INMO said the hospital was removing an additional 10 beds currently available as overflow for the emergency department.

The INMO conference in Co Meath was told it defied all sense and reason to place beds in unsafe locations at the hospital, while at the same time closing down 62 perfectly suitable beds.

The result of the nurses' ballot at Beaumont will be known on May 20.

Meanwhile, Labour party health spokesperson Jan O'Sullivan said the Beaumont bed closures and similar closures in other hospitals would cause misery for patients and should be stopped.

"Cutbacks should not be focused at the coalface of health service delivery. They could very well start with the projected €18.4 million the HSE has said it will spend on 'external advice' this year," she said.

nk1  Posted: 07/05/2010 08:57

The HSE tried this in the Regional Hospital Limerick to accommodate the extra patients they had to take from Ennis and Nenagh.  Have you read the items in the local media where this situation was described as 'a jungle'  where patients were told to ring home to get family to bring in bed linen and where beds were so tightly pressed together that a visiting doctor thought patients in a ward were sharing a double bed.  I kid you not .  It is time now, that a real stand was made.  It is very difficult for vulnerable patients to kick up when they are not well or for families who do not wish to rock the boat and don't want to cause a commotion when anyone of their own is going through the hospital system.  The awful pressure put on hard working front line staff who can do no more.  It is time for the Minister for Health Mary Harney to start thinking of patients as people not stats. or clients.  Time to put the caring back in hospitals and time to look after the patients.

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