Nurses 'don't trust' Government or HSE

The general secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), Phil Ní Sheaghdha, has said that her members do not trust the Government or their employer (the HSE) and called on them to “put safety first".

There had been an increase in the level of verbal assaults and physical assaults on nurses, she told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland ahead of the annual conference of the INMO.

“We know this because these are HSE figures, but also under Freedom of Information, we've got the statistics, but we get reports regularly from our members. Verbal assault is on the increase and unfortunately physical assault.

"This is well known to the HSE. It's well known to the Health and Safety Authority.

“We've been on the record now for quite some time calling for stronger measures. Putting signs up at a hospital saying there will be consequences is not good enough. The consequences have to be real.”

Lack of support

The lack of support for nurses was the main contributing factor to them leaving the health service, she added.

“They think their workplace is very unsafe. It's causing them to be unwell. We now have an increasing incidences of burnout. People are very stressed even before they start their shift, never mind when their shift finishes.”

Ní Sheaghdha said this was the employer’s responsibility and it had to be dealt with in order to retain people. “Because God knows we need more nurses working in our health services. We're short about 5,000 nurses at the moment, and that's not including about 2,000, just over two and a half thousand on maternity leave.”

It made no sense for the HSE to announce on Tuesday that they were curtailing recruitment because some areas were over budget, she said. “It's the wrong move. It makes no sense. It causes issues for patients.

“Patients will wait longer. And it most certainly, from our surveys, causes a health and safety risk to those they employ.”

INMO conference

Safety, staffing issues and mileage payments will all be raised with the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill when she attends the INMO conference this week, added Ní Sheaghdha.

“Legislation is required to implement good policy because we just don't trust the government or the employer at this point in any way that they will implement what's right because finance and fiscal policy comes first, and we have to put safety first for the staff and for the patients.”

When asked about the approach of the Irish Congress of Trade Union (of which she is President), to pay bargaining, Ní Sheaghdha agreed that there would be a new strategy following the recent fuel protests from the unions towards public pay talks.

There would “definitely” be a new approach, she said. “I think inflation is very high. There have been no measures to address that, we have a pay bargaining structure that's very organised. Obviously, if the focus of government is on the protests, and a lot of our members are saying and will be saying to us, if the same rules don't apply to everybody, then why are we sticking with them?”