4 Hour Work Stoppage in Limerick Regional A & E

nursextreme

HSE accuses nurses of providing ‘unacceptable’ levels of cover in Limerick A&E dispute.

http://www.limerickleader.ie/news/hse_accuses_nurses_of_providing_unacceptable_levels_of_cover_in_limerick_a_e_dispute_1_3073420?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

HSE management in Limerick has accused A&E nurses heading for the picket lines this afternoon of endangering patients and providing “inadequate” cover during a planned four-hour work stoppage by the INMO and SIPTU.

Nurses served notice of industrial action two weeks ago over staffing levels and the impact of budget cutbacks on patient safety in the Dooradoyle emergency department.

Appealing to the unions to call off the action, the HSE said they had “encountered an extraordinary lack of cooperation in normal contingency planning for the stoppage which represented a new, unwelcome and potentially dangerous departure in industrial action by nursing unions”.

The level of care proposed by unions between the hours of 1pm and 5pm was “inadequate and unacceptable”, the HSE said.

“No useful purpose” would be served by the action which would “only exacerbate the pressures in Dooradoyle which the unions said they were protesting against.”

Bernard Gloster, HSE Mid-West area manager, Bernard Gloster added: “In a situation where extra funding is not, and will not be, available from the government, and all concerned know this full well, it would make better sense to sit down and see how we can best utilise the resources we have. There is no prospect of overtime payments and agency nursing being restored.”

But both unions have pledged adequate levels of care will be provided during the stoppage and said the HSE had failed to attend meetings.

Today’s work stoppage will take place between 1pm and 5pm.

This action is bound to cause disruption for anyone with the bad fortune to have to visit A & E today, another 5 hours added to the existing long waiting time in the regional is bad news for everyone in the Limerick,Tipp and Clare region.
With regards to this the HSE Management attempt to deflect the coverage away from their own incompetence. This problem has been building for a number of years now.

Gloster states that there is no hope of Overtime and Agency nursing being restored so basically no point in protesting. That is not the point unfortunately - the overspend in this years budget for the Limerick Regional comes from the fact that the extra money has been spent on overtime and Agency rates where it would have been more effective to employ recently graduated nurses at the bottom end of the pay scale to cover the gaps left by the recruitment embargo.

Bad management is to blame for unacceptable levels of cover in Limerick A & E on a daily basis.

swim2

I Thought under the Croke park aggreement there were to be no strikes, or am I wrong?

Kess73

swim2 wrote: »

I Thought under the Croke park aggreement there were to be no strikes, or am I wrong?

Think you may be correct. I think part of that was that there would be no strikes or work stoppages as long as the Public sector had no pay cuts or lay offs imposed by the government, regardless of how badly the economy is doing at the time.

nursextreme

swim2 wrote: »

I Thought under the Croke park aggreement there were to be no strikes, or am I wrong?

Croke Park agreement allows work stoppages under certain conditions if disputes cannot be resolved by negotiations. Croke Park is partly responsible for the problem by allowing overtime and agency workers as a replacement for new cheaper alternatives by allowing the recruitment embargo to continue when other more effective savings could have been made.

phog

Is Clr Quinlivan a nurse or is he hijacking the dispute for his own political purposes?