The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) secured extra nursing posts for Limerick and other hospital at two separate hearings under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission in relation to the Emergecny Department overcrowding crisis.
The news comes on a day when there were 54 patients waiting on trolleys in the Limerick ED.
The INMO have deferred industrial action which was due to begin today.(Tuesday)
70 nursing staff are to be recruited for the University Hospitals Group including University Hospital Limerick, Ennis Hospital, Nenagh Hospital and Croom Orthopaedic Hospital. 39 nursing staff are to be recruited at Naas General Hospital.
Speaking this evening INMO Industrial Relations Officers Mary Fogarty (Mid West)
“The INMO welcomes the commitment to recruit extra nurses in the above hospitals. This is a positive outcome for our members who have continued to struggle with unmanageable workloads on a daily basis due to persistent overcrowding and understaffing.
We are now calling for an aggressive recruitment campaign to have the posts filled immediately in order to alleviate the continued suffering of patients in inhumane conditions and to allow our members to provide safe care. All barriers to the recruitment of nurses must now be lifted.”
Phil Ni Sheaghdha, INMO Director of Industrial Relations said: “Every effort to recruit nurses must now be made. Posts agreed in the past week between management and the INMO in Beaumont, Galway, the Mid West and Naas are necessary posts to allow safe service delivery and impact on the chronic overcrowding.We now need immediate visible action to prioritise this necessary recruitment.”
