NURSES
VOTE TO KEEP UP CAMPAIGN AGAINST OVERCROWDING
Nurses have voted to keep up their campaign against
overcrowding in A&E departments despite offers to give them an educational
bursary of €1,500, extra days off and more promotional opportunities.
It shows that they will not be bribed by HSE management
and will continue with their campaign to highlight the crisis in our hospitals.
‘Last November HSE set a target that there would be no
more than 50 patients waiting on trolleys throughout the country. Yet last
night over 500 people were waiting on trolleys – that is, more than ten times
the official target.
‘The greatest pressure on A&E departments normally
comes in January and February. Yet very little has been done to prepare for the
crisis.
‘The root of the problem lies in the policies adopted
by the FG-Labour government and their predecessors. In order to pay off
bondholder debt, they embarked on a policy of running down the public services
by abolishing over 30,000 jobs and attacking the pay and conditions of the
workforce.
’10,000 of those jobs were lost in the health services
and hospital wards were closed.
‘In 2001, the government’s health strategy suggested
that Ireland needed an extra 3,000 hospital beds to reach an overall target of
15,000 beds. Yet since 2008, the INMO estimates that 1,700 beds were lost,
leaving us with just 10,000 beds.
'In addition to all of this young nurses have been
treated so disgracefully that many leave the country once they graduate.
Student nurses are required to undertake 36 weeks clinical placement in their
final year. But they are paid below the minimum wage and this period is not
counted for incremental pay. All of these factors have meant that whole classes
of undergraduate nurses, are now leaving to work abroad – leaving behind a
massive recruitment crisis in Ireland.
‘The union leaders who went along with social
partnership agreements which claimed that workers could give ‘more for less’
have a lot to answer for.'
I am 100% behind the nurses in their action.