Nurses quit over safety fears at ED

Four nurses resigned their posts at University Hospital Galway last week in protest at the ‘unsafe’ conditions for staff and patients in its temporary Emergency Department.

And the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) confirmed to the Connacht Tribune that it has complained to the Health and Safety Authority about conditions in the makeshift ED.

“Our members are waving the flags. They’re saying ‘it’s dangerous here’. We cannot sustain this level of nurse-patient staffing. And if something isn’t done there will be further adverse incidents,” warned Anne Burke, INMO Western Region Industrial Relations Officer.

Ms Burke said four nurses resigned from the green stream or non-Covid ED. This building used to be the acute surgical assessment unit but was converted into an ED at the beginning of the pandemic to keep suspected-Covid and non-Covid patients separate.

She said it was staffed by people who had never worked in an Accident and Emergency Department, and it was not designed as an ED.

“It has been absolutely and utterly overwhelmed in the last number of weeks. Our members there have raised very serious concerns in relation to the safety of patients and the safety of staff in that area. There were incidents two weekends ago, when there were huge numbers of patients sitting on a rostrum or the white raised bit of a skirting board that you could barely sit on at the bottom of windows, not even on chairs.

“I saw evidence of other patients sitting on chairs, falling asleep and holding onto their drip-stand. There were three trolleys blocking the doorway into the main clinical area. It was eye-opening. They are crying out for staff,” said Ms Burke.

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