The Nurses.

nesf

gandalf wrote:

I would doubt there is. Its one thing being a waster hidden in an office, its another doing it in a public facing position where someone not pulling their weight will add directly to their colleagues already overstretched workload and I am sure would be addressed quite forceably as such (one thing about nurses they ain't shy!). Again all I can speak from is experience and any of the nurses I saw worked their arses off, some had attitudes, some were grumpy others were pleasant no matter what but hey they are human.

IMHO Nursing is not a profession the lazy or the waster would go into in the first place.

Sit down and talk to any nurse and you'll hear stories of wasters, idiots and muppets in the profession. A minority sure, but they do exist. It isn't a profession that lends itself to lazy people, but some somehow manage to make it work for them. That and, not every nurse works facing members of the public who have their full faculties, i.e. kids, special needs, geriatrics etc etc. Yes, the majority work hard and care about the work that they do, but it's simply untrue to assert that every nurse is like this.

Not that this has anything to do with their pay claim or asking for a shorter working week tbh.

zootroid

public sector employees already earn way more than private sector. i don't see why they should get any increase whatsoever. benchmarking was/is a joke

Mr. Incognito

My girlfriend is a midwife in Holles Street. She's a qualified nurse and she's on 26K. She works on average 44 hour weeks, with one half hour lunch break as the hospital is so busy.
The cleaners are actually getting paid more. She did a three year degree and then two more to qualify as a midwife.
26K is barely enough to live on in Dublin. The social workers are on 30K plus and work a 35 hour week.
Trainee doctors work crazy hours aye but the compensation is there for them.

Nurses do everything from washing patients to cleaning up poo all over the place. I'v heard horror stories from the hospitals she has worked in. They are all diamonds in the work they do and I really think that they should be paid a decent wage.

The whole health service is a mess. What in gods name does 48% of the Health expenditure go to managers for? When you think consultants are pulling down 250K that's a lot of cash for people that really do administrative functions. How much organisation is there? Any why are there so many Industrial disputes if these people were organising effectively.

Nurses are in the public sector but do not have their wages indexed or receive a rise like civil servants every time the TD's vote for a pay increase. So those they work beside have seen an increase of over 180% in some cases while the nurses have still not received the raise promised under benchmarking 4 years ago. They recently went to the Labour court.

Harney stood up to the consultants and since backed down. They are now free under their new contracts to work in both public and private sectors. It is mean, unfair and bigoted to attack the nurses when one has bothered to learn the facts of the matter. Most posters here that have posted derogitory comments have done just that. Posted without informing themselves of the facts. Sadly such sheep exist in all walks of life. It's their fault we have such ineffective politicians as they refuse to inform themselves and vote the same useless shower back in.

darkman2

The public sector needs to be reigned in. The days of this sort of blackmail are over. I hope the HSE and the government send out a clear message that this sort of thing is not going to work. There are mechanisms to deal with grievances.

If we gave into the Nurses you would have every public body looking for the same thing. I can gaurentee it.

What the HSE should do is say: Right enough is enough. If you dont go back to work you will be sacked. Regardless of how many sackings that is. Enough is enough. Get back to work and stop trying to blackmail the taxpayers. That goes for any public sector employees who think its fine to this sort of thing for very dubious claims.

FlutterinBantam

You have some good points there DM.

However in reality things don't work quite like that,unfortunately.

Public sector is becoming an albatross around the States neck ,and as you say needs to be reined in.

When you have a highly articulate and media savvy leader of a group who cannot be sacked or made redundant ,this is what happens.

It would not happen in the private sector as of course the company would wind up or go out of business

mikemac

darkman2 wrote:

What the HSE should do is say: Right enough is enough. If you dont go back to work you will be sacked. Regardless of how many sackings that is. Enough is enough. Get back to work and stop trying to blackmail the taxpayers. That goes for any public sector employees who think its fine to this sort of thing for very dubious claims.

Agree with you. Your post reminded me of this situation. I doubt our leaders would be strong enough to do this though

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5604656


Twenty-five years ago, on Aug. 3, 1981, more than 12,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization walked off the job, setting off a chain of events that would redefine labor relations in America.
In response to the walkout, President Ronald Reagan issued one of the defining statements of his presidency. He said the striking air-traffic controllers were in violation of the law; if they did not report to work within 48 hours, their jobs would be terminated.
Reagan carried out his threat.

kizzyr

darkman2 wrote:

The public sector needs to be reigned in. The days of this sort of blackmail are over. I hope the HSE and the government send out a clear message that this sort of thing is not going to work. There are mechanisms to deal with grievances.

If we gave into the Nurses you would have every public body looking for the same thing. I can gaurentee it.

What the HSE should do is say: Right enough is enough. If you dont go back to work you will be sacked. Regardless of how many sackings that is. Enough is enough. Get back to work and stop trying to blackmail the taxpayers. That goes for any public sector employees who think its fine to this sort of thing for very dubious claims.

As other FMs have said you make some good points and I agree that the sector needs to be monitered, however the nurses are only looking for what everyone else gets nothing extra. The HSE is a huge expensive ineffective disaster and costs way more to the tax payer than what the nurses are looking for.

de5p0i1er

They do most of teh work in hospitals. Why should they get payed so little.

darkman2

kizzyr wrote:

As other FMs have said you make some good points and I agree that the sector needs to be monitered, however the nurses are only looking for what everyone else gets nothing extra. The HSE is a huge expensive ineffective disaster and costs way more to the tax payer than what the nurses are looking for.

They are trying this on just before the election thinking they have a better chance of getting a government wobble.

I would like to point out the cost at a time the economy is slowing down.


1 billion euro per year is the cost to the taxpayer of a 35 hour week and a 10 per cent rise in wages for these nurses.

So I doubt the answer is to make the HSE an even more expensive black hole.

I also want to say from my experience recently I was visiting my very sick mother in hospital and what did I see? (this is true btw) The nurses on duty were all huddled up like groupies at the reception area talking about the most important issue as to what they would order for a chinese later that evening. That does not look good tbh.

Nobody wants to be cruel with the Nurses but they are trying to pull a fast one here and potentially open up a pandorras box of problems in the process. No thanks tbh.

thebaz

de5p0i1er wrote:

They do most of teh work in hospitals. Why should they get payed so little.

Why should the cleaners be paid so little, and treated a lot worse than the nurses , when they keep the hospital clean ? probably , because they work in the private sector, and if they don't like it they have to get a new job.
But i do agree, that the real crooks in this whole mess, are the consultants, now there is a closed shop of wealthy , vested and powerfull people -- who completly hold the country to ransom, with there monopolostic actions -- why won't they allow more consultants in, oh they might have to take a pay cut, and earn a lowly 6 figure salary - the heart bleeds.

Vorsprung

thebaz wrote:

Why should the cleaners be paid so little, and treated a lot worse than the nurses , when they keep the hospital clean ? probably , because they work in the private sector, and if they don't like it they have to get a new job.
But i do agree, that the real crooks in this whole mess, are the consultants, now there is a closed shop of wealthy , vested and powerfull people -- who completly hold the country to ransom, with there monopolostic actions -- why won't they allow more consultants in, oh they might have to take a pay cut, and earn a lowly 6 figure salary - the heart bleeds.

What have the consultants got to do with this action!?!

thebaz

bigjimthefirst wrote:

What have the consultants got to do with this action!?!

Because they are a closed shop, that won't allow in new badly needed new consultants join the profession, so as they can continue to charge excessive fees, and fleece the health service and government -- yes there are some good consultants , but there also some bad ones , and as a body are very powerfull, too powerfull, and need to expand and increase there membership, instead of constantly whimpering about being badly treated , when in fact they are over paid.

Vorsprung

thebaz wrote:

Because they are a closed shop, that won't allow in new badly needed new consultants join the profession, so as they can continue to charge excessive fees, and fleece the health service and government -- yes there are some good consultants , but there also some bad ones , and as a body are very powerfull, too powerfull, and need to expand and increase there membership, instead of constantly whimpering about being badly treated , when in fact they are over paid.

Again, what's it got to do with the nurses?

thebaz

bigjimthefirst wrote:

Again, what's it got to do with the nurses?

I was replying to de5p0i1er , who said nurses did most of the work in the hospital -- whats it to you ?

fastrac

student nurses work for 14 wks a year in the hospitals unpaid.how many other 3rd level students are asked to do this ? hospital cleaners have the worst deal getting all the grief while the private companies that hire them make a fortune at the tax payers expense. i bet a list of the bosses of those companies would make interesting reading. how will hospitals be clean if half the cleaners dont speak english get no training or support and are moved around to different jobs constantly with no rights or pensions

sam34

a few points.
1. who the hell thinks doctors work 32/33/35 hrs per week????? a doctors basic working week is 39hrs.
2. doctors are required to work overtime. sure, they are paid for that, but the hours involved are ridiculous. the nurses say they would be too tired after their 39 and even 35 hr weeks to do some overtime (ie a 12 hr shift). try being a doctor and doing a 48 hr shift after a normal working week.
3. when nurses do overtime, the amount they are paid is better proportionally than doctors. i know that this applies to night duty overtime anyway, not sure if it applies to day duty.
4.
all this stuff about nurses being blamed when doctors make mistakes..... give me a break. one cannot sue a named nurse. one can sue a named doctor. re a "dosage error" being solely the doctors fault -- if a doctor prescribes an incorrect dosage, it does not absolve the nurse administering the meds of all responsibility. if you are giving a patient a drug you should check the dosage and query it if you think its wrong.
5.as for the work to rule meaning that they no longer do the "consultants donkey work" - oh please! what donkey work exactly is this referring to?

we'd all love a shorter working week and better pay.
we'renot all going to get it.
welcome to real life.

thebaz

sam34 wrote:

a few points.
1. who the hell thinks doctors work 32/33/35 hrs per week????? a doctors basic working week is 39hrs.
2. doctors are required to work overtime. sure, they are paid for that, but the hours involved are ridiculous. .

All in all the health service is a joke , fat greedy overpaid consultants , nurses co-ordinated by a militant dictator, all out to fleece the tax payer , in providing a rotten service to the people of Ireland, while all parties cry for more money , which can duly be wasted -- as people are finding out to get a decent efficient health system , you must leave the country.

nesf

thebaz wrote:

All in all the health service is a joke , fat greedy overpaid consultants , nurses co-ordinated by a militant dictator, all out to fleece the tax payer , in providing a rotten service to the people of Ireland, while all parties cry for more money , which can duly be wasted -- as people are finding out to get a decent efficient health system , you must leave the country.

Take your consultant/health service rants to another thread tbh. They are off-topic here.

timmywex

just on the doctors overtime,

i have to agree here, everyone involved in the health system and espically a+e work huge overtime, for example, some paramedics have to work 100 hours a week just to keep one ambulance on the road in some area's and junior doctors work huge 36/48 hour shifts, the nurses wont be that tired after 35 hours, plus,its work,not a walk in the park where you aren't supposed to be tired after,

i agree with the nurses getting the shorter week but not the pay rise

thebaz

nesf wrote:

Take your consultant/health service rants to another thread tbh. They are off-topic here.

i'm sorry , i do really love nurses

K-9

I see on the news, the Patient care organisation have called on the nurses to reconsider cancer patients if they go on strike.

What exactly do they mean by this? Is provision of services to cancer patients going to be affected if there is a strike?

First strike in the PR battle I think and the patients organisation are often defending nurses.

A Random Walk

Seanies32 wrote:

What exactly do they mean by this? Is provision of services to cancer patients going to be affected if there is a strike?

Provision is being affected right now in part because pending patients are not getting clear information from the hospitals - in one case I'm personally aware of they are booked in for a major operation next week, and while they are being told to prepare as normal the hospital cannot guarantee there won't be a disruption to the schedule.

You can imagine how stressful it is for an already sick person to be worrying about whether or not they are going to get the treatment they have waited years for.

Personally I'm beginning to get a bit tired of listening to people talk about how great nurses are. They are using patients health as a bargaining tool and I think it is disgusting. And no I don't want to hear any b****x about it "not compromising patient care".

Wishbone Ash

darkman2 wrote:

Right enough is enough. If you dont go back to work you will be sacked. Regardless of how many sackings that is. Enough is enough. Get back to work and stop trying to blackmail the taxpayers

In your complete ignorance of the situation darkman2 you seem to have forgotten that the nurses are not on strike. They are simply working to rule, i.e. doing what they are paid to do. Would you like to be sacked for doing your job?

K-9

Wishbone Ash wrote:

In your complete ignorance of the situation darkman2 you seem to have forgotten that the nurses are not on strike. They are simply working to rule, i.e. doing what they are paid to do. Would you like to be sacked for doing your job?

But there is the threat to strike hanging over this if they don't get there way.


In nurses opinions, benchmarking 1 didn't work, pay agreements didn't work, Labour Court recommendations didn't work and by the looks of it, work to rules aren't going to work. What happens if, as seems likely strikes don't work. That's a criticism that applies to the public service not nurses personally.

A Random Walk wrote:

Personally I'm beginning to get a bit tired of listening to people talk about how great nurses are. They are using patients health as a bargaining tool and I think it is disgusting.

That's the problems with work to rules/strikes. Despite arguments otherwise, nurses will get blamed, rightly or wrongly, for reductions in patient care. The Govt. have learned that they get the blame even if everything isn't necessarily there fault. A patients organisation coming out with a statement like that is certainly not going to help their cause.

Eventually, there comes a point where the public will say you made your point, now go and get the best deal that you can get.

Dr Galen

In nurses opinions, benchmarking 1 didn't work, pay agreements didn't work, Labour Court recommendations didn't work and by the looks of it, work to rules aren't going to work. What happens if, as seems likely strikes don't work. That's a criticism that applies to the public service not nurses personally.

can i suggest that you look here and here for some of the reasoning behind the action thats currently going on. Hopefully will make the nurses point of view more clear and show the rationale behind it

That's the problems with work to rules/strikes. Despite arguments otherwise, nurses will get blamed, rightly or wrongly, for reductions in patient care. The Govt. have learned that they get the blame even if everything isn't necessarily there fault. A patients organisation coming out with a statement like that is certainly not going to help their cause.

your very right here i have to agree. its already started. i think this shows 2 things.....
1) anyone would think all nurses did all day was answer pnones or sit in front of PC. Yes in some situations that makes up a large part of the role, but for most of us, its not. Our role is with direct patient care, and being at the bedside/operating room etc. Believe it or not, i'd say about 90% of our work is done in the old fashioned pen and paper way, IT has not permeated the health system as much as one would think. if nurses not answering the phones is causing this much chaos (allegedly), you have to ask is our non nursing duties, ie answering said phones, taking too much away from the core work.

2) yesterday was my first day back will the work to rule has been in action, and I have to say for the patients we had, it was great. Most of my morning is generally spent chasing after doc's looking for this or that, getting them to do things they said they'd do or are supposed to do and haven't. and thats only half of it. (this is not a slight on the doc's though, they have their own issues).
yesterday, i found all those silly little things that I normally have to chase, have miraculously been done, by someone........no chasing needed. I didn't have dozens of calls from x-ray/pharmacy asking nonsense questions. sure i still had the odd one to deal with, but they were generally inportant in nature. I found i had loads more time with the patients, and this was noticed by the patients as well. Far from it being bad for them I'd say. Maybe we've hit on something here....... we had an extra admin staffer in the afternoon, again freeing us up to do nursey stuff......and everything actually seemed to run a bit more efficiently from a non-nursing point of view.

sam34

just another thought; we've been repeatedly told by the nurses that patient care is not being affected by the work to rule, and that not answering phones gives them time to do more "nursey" things. could someone please explain to me how the following scenario does not affect patient care --
Dr x is the junior doctor attached to a particular team which has patients on different wards in the hospital. lets imagine that dr x is in the outpatients clinic, or finishing a ward round, or in theatre, or in a&e... whereever.Now, patient Yon one of the wards becomes unwell and in need of medical attention. So, nurse z, looking after patient y, pages dr x. but lets imagine that another nurse on another ward pages him for a less urgent reason at the same time as nurse z. when dr x goes to answer the pages - ie ring the wards- nobody answers the phone (because apparantly this 'menial' task is below nurses). so now, how does dr x know which ward to prioritise? he doesnt. ergo, he may inadvertently choose to attend to the less urgent task first, thereby leaving patient y suffering, DIRECTLY because a nurse didnt answer the phone.
i know that some nurse reading this is going to jump down my throat and say that you can leave voice messages on pagers, but the fact is that you cannot do so on all pagers, some of them only accept numerical data entry.

Vorsprung

sam34 wrote:

just another thought; we've been repeatedly told by the nurses that patient care is not being affected by the work to rule, and that not answering phones gives them time to do more "nursey" things. could someone please explain to me how the following scenario does not affect patient care --
Dr x is the junior doctor attached to a particular team which has patients on different wards in the hospital. lets imagine that dr x is in the outpatients clinic, or finishing a ward round, or in theatre, or in a&e... whereever.Now, patient Yon one of the wards becomes unwell and in need of medical attention. So, nurse z, looking after patient y, pages dr x. but lets imagine that another nurse on another ward pages him for a less urgent reason at the same time as nurse z. when dr x goes to answer the pages - ie ring the wards- nobody answers the phone (because apparantly this 'menial' task is below nurses). so now, how does dr x know which ward to prioritise? he doesnt. ergo, he may inadvertently choose to attend to the less urgent task first, thereby leaving patient y suffering, DIRECTLY because a nurse didnt answer the phone.
i know that some nurse reading this is going to jump down my throat and say that you can leave voice messages on pagers, but the fact is that you cannot do so on all pagers, some of them only accept numerical data entry.

Every phone on the ward has a different number, and generally when someone dials a bleep, they stay at that phone for a few minutes.

PeakOutput

Wishbone Ash wrote:

In your complete ignorance of the situation darkman2 you seem to have forgotten that the nurses are not on strike. They are simply working to rule, i.e. doing what they are paid to do. Would you like to be sacked for doing your job?

with all due respect in your own ignorance you have clearly not read the whole thread.

as has already been explained working to rule is not doing what it says in your contract its doing the least amount of work to cause the most amount of disruption without, apparently, affecting patients safety

nesf

Wishbone Ash wrote:

In your complete ignorance of the situation darkman2 you seem to have forgotten that the nurses are not on strike. They are simply working to rule, i.e. doing what they are paid to do. Would you like to be sacked for doing your job?

Work to rule is more than that. It is a form of industrial action, and honestly, if you use common sense, you'd gather that in order for it to be effective as a form of industrial action that there would have to be some form of slow down or negative effect coming from it.

Otherwise, if it effected nothing and everything ran as normal, the party working to rule would just be ignored indefinitely.

Dr Galen

sam34 wrote:

just another thought; we've been repeatedly told by the nurses that patient care is not being affected by the work to rule, and that not answering phones gives them time to do more "nursey" things. could someone please explain to me how the following scenario does not affect patient care --
Dr x is the junior doctor attached to a particular team which has patients on different wards in the hospital. lets imagine that dr x is in the outpatients clinic, or finishing a ward round, or in theatre, or in a&e... whereever.Now, patient Yon one of the wards becomes unwell and in need of medical attention. So, nurse z, looking after patient y, pages dr x. but lets imagine that another nurse on another ward pages him for a less urgent reason at the same time as nurse z. when dr x goes to answer the pages - ie ring the wards- nobody answers the phone (because apparantly this 'menial' task is below nurses). so now, how does dr x know which ward to prioritise? he doesnt. ergo, he may inadvertently choose to attend to the less urgent task first, thereby leaving patient y suffering, DIRECTLY because a nurse didnt answer the phone.
i know that some nurse reading this is going to jump down my throat and say that you can leave voice messages on pagers, but the fact is that you cannot do so on all pagers, some of them only accept numerical data entry.

i can defo see your point here, and its a good observation,

firstly, there haven't been many/any pages over simple tasks. we've only be doing so if a patient is deteriorating or needs attention sharpish for whatever reason. The doctors are aware of this, and so, accordingly are answering all pages bearing this in mind.

Secondly, the are 2 systems inplace, In my hospital anyway. each ward has an "emergnecis phone" and thats the one we've been bleeping off, if that phone rings....its answered, by anyone about, as we know its probably something serious. also there is a central call room, which can be used as a bit of go between in cases of doubt. each ward also has had an admin person in place during the day to anser all incoming calls, normally this has been the ward clerk or some such other person.

you do make a good point though