Nurses working in Emergency Departments (EDs) are to go ahead with strike action next week, it has been confirmed.
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Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation voted against proposals aimed at resolving overcrowding problems, because they say they are not confident they would be implemented on a 24 hour, seven-days-a-week basis.
However, Members of the INMO have rejected those proposals in a ballot.
“And we have to agree our next steps in the context of a day of strike action this day week in seven hospitals”.
“Staff in Mullingar have no confidence in management to implement any of the proposed improvements, that is why this is happened”, finished Mr Reilly.
It pointed out that in recent days, more than 550 patients were left on trolleys in EDs nationwide, and members feel that senior management had not prepared for “the inevitable surge in the early days of the New Year”.
It said the worst affected hospital was Beaumont with around 50 patients waiting.
The INMO has said the emergency department at University Hospital Limerick is totally unsafe, with nurses in despair.
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The meeting comes on a week when at one point nearly 560 people were on trolleys in emergency departments and wards at hospitals around the country. “But again this morning there are 15 hour delays for patients to see an emergency department doctor”.
