“The current situation renders it impossible for nurses to provide safe care to their patients in an environment where the patients enjoys privacy and dignity”
A WARNING that they are prepared to take industrial action unless hospital management and the HSE “get their house in order,” comes from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) spokesperson, Mary Fogarty. Commenting, following last week’s crisis which saw 37 patients left on trolleys at the A & E Department, Ms Fogarty said: “They are putting patients into areas where there are no staff, not enough beds and they are not going to get any more in the next couple of years, so they will have to manage the hospital better.”
Central to the talks between the parties is how the HSE is going to get more nurses into the hospital and how the escalation plan – which covers incidents in which there is an upsurge in demand for beds – will be implemented.
In a statement, the INMO said that members in Limerick will be forced to consider all options, available to them to protect patient care unless management immediately initiates measures to address the continuous and persistent gross overcrowding at the hospital.
“The current situation renders it impossible for nurses to provide safe care to their patients in an environment where the patient enjoys privacy and dignity,” the INMO states.
Trolley watch figures show that the hospital “endures chronic overcrowding in the Emergency Department.
“As well, up to 50 additional patients are on the corridors and in annexes of the hospital daily, awaiting a designated bed. Safe and proper care cannot be given to patients while they are placed in undesignated inpatient areas and while there is inadequate staffing to provide a safe level of care”.
The union wants to see an immediate implementation on a regional wide basis of the major emergency plan and the immediate recruitment of nurses on fixed term contracts to staff the patient areas and to provide care to cope with surges in demand at the hospital.
The INMO is requesting that the Special Delivery Unit, based in the Department of Health, brings forward further supports and other initiatives required immediately to address “the wholly unacceptable clinical risks which now exist in the hospital”.
