Striking nurses ‘left with no choice’

‘Dangerous and frightening’ conditions in Galway’s public hospitals – including daily Emergency Department overcrowding – prompted local nurses to vote overwhelmingly for strike action for more pay, to stem the tide of staff leaving the system from burnout.

Some 95% of the 1,800 INMO (Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation) members in Galway voted in favour of a 24-hour strike on Wednesday, January 30.

Should the dispute go unresolved, there will be further 24-hour strikes on February 5 and 7, and then February 12, 13 and 14.

The dispute centres on safe staffing in the public health service. The HSE has not been able to recruit and retain enough nurses and midwives on current wages, which has heaped pressure on INMO nurses.

“It’s a frightening place to be. Nurses are frightened going to work. It is a dangerous place to work,” said chair of the Galway branch of INMO, Mary Leahy.

“The conditions are so bad that they cannot retain staff. Nurses who are financially strapped, are reducing their hours or getting out of nursing because they cannot cope. It is dangerous.

“Nurses are coming in early and working for free to relieve their colleagues. Nurses are working shifts without breaks.

“I know nurses in Galway who finish their day shift and go straight into five or six hours of a night shift because there aren’t enough staff to relieve them.

“Nurses in the Emergency Department, spend much of their time apologising to patients and their families for the lack of dignity and privacy. It is an intolerable situation. Burnout is a real issue,” said Ms Leahy.

See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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