AS 41 patients were waiting for treatment in the University Hospital Limerick’s Emergency Department the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has called for an immediate meeting of the Emergency Department Taskforce, established by the Minister before Christmas, to consider, and agree, measures to alleviate this crisis.
This Tuesday figures showed 601 people countrywide waiting on trolleys represent the highest number ever recorded since the INMO began its trolley watch initiative in 2004.
The INMO is calling the issue a “national emergency requiring a range of special initiatives which must include, the opening of additional beds (acute and non-acute); the immediate recruitment of additional nursing staff (utilising overtime in the interim where required); and an emergency injection of resources into the community to support additional home care packages and community nursing interventions.
The INMO is also calling for the HSE, and other acute hospital employers, to immediately audit their compliance with health and safety legislation in relation to the working environment of nursing, and other frontline staff, in these overcrowded departments.
“The INMO would remind employers that they have a legal obligation to ensure a safe system of work, for their staff, and health employers are failing, in this regard, in these overcrowded units. The INMO will be seeking feedback, from health employers, in relation to this matter at the meeting of the ED Taskforce,” a statement said.
INMO General Secretary Liam Doran said: “We must act collectively, in the interests of these vulnerable patients and the staff trying to provide care to them, to alleviate the indignity, loss of privacy and compromising of patient care arising from this overcrowding crisis. The need for additional resources is self-evident and no party should now hinder the allocation of the required resources, to deal with this deplorable care environment, immediately”.
The INMO is also calling for the general public to support the public protest, “to highlight the reality for patients and staff at this time”.
The protest is scheduled for Dail Eireann at noon next Wednesday, January 14.
