The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have today announced that they intend to ballot their members over the HSE’s recruitment moratorium and the impact it is having on staffing across the public health service.
The HSE’s baseless recruitment moratorium has led to further levels of unsafe staffing right across our public health service, from the community to our acute hospitals. The moratorium has led to over 2,000 vacancies in the health service. This means that today, tonight and tomorrow services and wards across Ireland are understaffed which is having a detrimental impact on patient care.
The lack of action by the HSE has left us with no other option but to now ballot our members for industrial action. Over 2,000 much-needed nursing and midwifery posts have now been effectively abolished by the HSE. This means the safety of our members at work is severely compromised and their at work and their ability provide safe, appropriate and timely care is not possible.
The INMO Executive Council, made up of working nurses and midwives, have considered every possible option but feel strongly that the only response is a strong collective one from members and that this response must be an industrial relations response. INMO members in the public service will be balloted from the 14th of October.
In continuing their moratorium through extremely limiting recruitment caps, the HSE have gone too far and are imposing restrictions so severe, broken staffing agreements, and disregarded the working conditions you now are expected to provide care in. As safety critical professionals we cannot tolerate this impact on patient and staff safety any longer.
For too long the goodwill of nurses and midwives has been taken for granted. It's time to call a halt and together with our colleagues in other trade unions exercise our rights to say, ‘This is a step too far, and we will not tolerate it’.