Large gaps in the nursing and midwifery workforce are impacting on safe patient care and the INMO says it has come to the point where members will ballot for industrial action beginning tomorrow Monday.
At a meeting last evening examples of short staffing and very high-risk situations now arising due to the HSE�s de-facto recruitment ban were set out by INMO representatives.
Many nursing posts in cancer, palliative, paediatric, and rehab care are being left vacant, according to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation.
Speaking ahead of the ballot taking commencing, INMO President Caroline Gourley said:
“INMO members have provided us with example after example of posts not being filled when a colleague leaves or retires and posts that are deemed essential under the ED agreement not being filled. While there is a Framework for Safe Nurse Staffing and Skill Mix, many of the posts measured as necessary to provide safe care under this are not being filled.”
INMO General Secretary Phil N� Sheaghdha said:
�The recruitment freeze is having a detrimental impact on the provision of care. What we are seeing is a postcode lottery when it comes to vital start-of-life and end-of-life care, the removal of vital nursing and midwifery posts will only exacerbate this.
�The filling of vacant posts in new regional health authorities is now based on who shouts the loudest, not clinical need”.
