NURSES IN LIMERICK have decided to go ahead with industrial actions if no resolution to their difficulties is offered at a meeting with the HSE this afternoon.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said its members at the Emergency Department at the Mid Western Regional Hospital voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.

About 70 nurses in the Emergency Department balloted on whether to start industrial actions following numerous calls to the HSE to ensure that there will be more dedicated beds for emergency admissions at the hospital.

Earlier today, the nurses’ industrial relations officer Mary Fogarty told TheJournal.ie that these actions will include a work-to-rule and some withdrawal of labour over short periods of time.

The INMO will serve notice of industrial action on the HSE after this afternoon’s meeting if assurances about bed capacity at the hospital’s Emergency Department are not made.

Industrial actions will more than likely commence in three weeks, said Fogarty.

The INMO claims that recent reductions of the number of acute beds in the hospital have led to more people lying on trolleys in A&E. The situation has been further exacerbated by the closure of 50 acute beds in Ennis and Nenagh hospitals in 2009, said Fogarty.

“The factual situation for our members throughout the hospital is that they find themselves, and the attending patients, in an unsafe situation with overcrowded wards…and increasing trolley figures in the Emergency Department,” explained Fogarty.

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