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LAST UPDATE | 27 Nov 2024
HEALTHCARE WORKERS HAVE voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action over concerns about a “staffing crisis” in the sector.
Thousands of nurses, midwives and other hospital workers employed by the Health Service Executive (HSE), such as healthcare assistants, paramedics and maintenance workers, were balloted.
Workers employed in so-called Section 38 hospitals also voted in the ballot; these are voluntary hospitals which receive funding from the HSE.
As previously reported by The Journal, healthcare workers have consistently raised concerns about thousands of vacant roles.
A freeze on recruiting staff was lifted by the HSE in July, however managers said roles that were vacant at the end of last year are now deemed ‘non-existent’ and can’t be filled.
Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), United and Fórsa have all backed industrial action, it was confirmed today. Over 90% of members of each union voted in favour of the motion.
The unions will now meet to discuss the outcome of the ballot and consider their next steps. The industrial action could include strikes. In this scenario, unions are required to provide a minimum of three weeks’ notice to employers.
Responding to the result of the ballot, Ashley Connolly, the head of Fórsa’s Health & Welfare division, said continuing employment restrictions are putting patient services under enormous strain.
“Waiting lists continue to grow, and it’s having a damaging effect on the morale of our members who continue to deliver services. They cannot operate indefinitely in circumstances where demand outstrips capacity.”
“The HSE and the Department of Health need to wake up to that challenge. It can’t continue this way,” Connolly said.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the “staffing crisis” means “workers are relentlessly overstretched while patients are not getting the service they need”.
Our members have no choice but to take action in defence of patient safety and their own working conditions.
INMO President Caroline Gourley said nurses and midwives are “no longer willing to accept pausing the hiring of much-needed safety critical staff in a weak attempt to balance the books”.
“All autonomy has been stripped from directors of nursing and midwifery to recruit additional nurses and midwives, yet they are the ones who are expected to ensure a safe service.
“We cannot wait any longer, patients deserve a properly staffed health service that is not constantly dogged by crisis after crisis.”
The INMO said over 2,000 nursing and midwifery posts were left unfilled in the public health system at the end of 2023. Many other roles in the wider healthcare sector also remain vacant.
A number of protests have taken place outside hospitals around the country to date, including one in Portlaoise today and another outside St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin.
A spokesperson for the HSE said the organisation “will consider the results of the union ballots” once it receives “detail on the type of action proposed”.
The spokesperson added that the HSE engages “with all trade unions to resolve issues, and will continue to do so, utilising the industrial relations mechanisms of the state, should it be required”.
The Journal has asked the Department of Health for comment.
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A precedence has been set with this. Well meaning as it is. Will not other survivors of state ineffectiveness want something similar.
@AnthonyK: At a risk of sounding controversial, I think this should have been dealt with under some form of compensation or redress rather than some blanket thing.
That it doesn’t preclude future settlements is an odd thing.
However, I’m more onboard with the Gov actually doing something rather than nothing for those people it’s completely failed.
maybe hold tony hoolahan to account? no, no, that would be too much to expect of this snide government.
@Niall English: What specifically should he be held to account for?
Are they going to do this for all individuals who have been failed by the state (and how is that defined)? There’s plenty of people who have suffered, including Stardust victims, people who can’t get or afford homes.
The amount of misinformation out there around what happened with cervical check is mind-blowing. The way some people talk you’d swear that the testing service actually gave people cancer.
@Jason Memail: Quite the opposite, it didn’t tell them that they had cancer so they didn’t receive the treatment they needed, in a nutshell
@Brian D’Arcy: That’s absolutely false, and part of the misinformation that’s common on this subject. 1) These women received tests from cervical check which told them that cancer cells were not present. 2) These women subsequently developed cancer, and a review of their original tests was carried out. 3) The reviews showed that the earlier tests missed what may have been cancerous cells, with these reviews aided by the fact that the reviewers knew what they were looking for, since the patients had developed cancer.
@Jason Memail: 4) The decision was made, and this is the real crux of the issue, not to go back and tell those women that the earlier tests missed the potentially cancerous cells, mainly because what good would it do? They now had cancer and knowing an earlier test missed it wouldn’t change that. 5) Overall, the suggestion that cervical check didn’t tell these people they had cancer is demonstrably false, because the only reason the reviews were carried out on the initial tests is because they had cancer, which they knew about. 6) Going back and checking original tests when something like this happens is standard practice, and the right thing to do in order to improve future testing, but
@Jason Memail: 7) you can argue whether or not it was the right decision not to inform people about what the earlier tests missed, but it would not and could not have changed the fact that they now, sadly, had cancer, and 8) Knowing that an earlier test missed something could not have allowed them to start treatment earlier, because it’s in the oast. 9) If you want to know the specifics of it, I’d suggest checking out care2much on Twitter, who has written some incredibly detailed threads on the subject.
While this is welcome and like one commentor said that it should have been done with compensation.
As a survivor of the industrial state/religious run institutions we never got compensation we were give an “Award” as if we won something, we cannot get enhanced medical cards that the survivors from the mother and baby home were afforded, we cannot get a contributary pension even though we had to work in these institutions, we now get another slap in the face by being excluded from theses tax benefits. I live in a council house and am grateful for that, I live with my ill husband and disabled totally dependant 23 year old son was told that I can purchase the house for a minimum of between 60 and 80 thousand euro, cannot get a mortgage as my husband is 70 as the cut off is 69 and we’ve have no where to go to help buy the house so our disabled son would have a roof over his head if anything happened to us.
have your say