Latest Govt report into health service does not prioritise patient safety

The INMO has said the latest Department of Health/HSE-commissioned IGEES report into the public hospital system is divorced from the reality of the lived experience of frontline patient-facing hospital staff.
 
INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha said: 

This is all about saving money rather than patient safety and investing in services. This report presents a different reality to that experienced by our members who are working in the public hospital system. 
 
The reality is we have never denied an increase in the nursing and midwifery workforce however that does not take into account the unprecedented population growth we have seen in the last four years coupled with increased attendances and overcrowding which no public hospital in the State has been immune from.
 
The Minister has supported a measurement tool to implement safe levels of nurse staffing in medical and surgical wards in our public hospitals. Before this framework started to be rolled out staffing was wholly inadequate in public hospitals. The continued implementation of the HSE’s recruitment moratorium continues to pose a threat to safe staffing. 
 
This report does not take into account the lived reality of Irish nurses and midwives who are working in understaffed and overcrowded wards and patients with complex co-morbidities while grappling with an outflow of staff who are leaving for pastures new and early retirements. 
 
The lived experiences of our working nurses and midwives within the Irish public hospital system must be taken into account.