Cork INMO highlights CUH working conditions following HIQA report

Cork University Hospital’s Emergency Department has been deemed to be non-compliant in one standard of care, and partially compliant in three standards, according to a new Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) report. HIQA conducted an overview of a selected number of Irish hospitals’ emergency departments in relation to their compliance against the four national standards, in a report called Monitoring Programme against the National Standards in Emergency Departments 2022, published this week.

Cork University Hospital (CUH) is “partially compliant” in relation to service providers having “effective management arrangements to support and promote the delivery of high quality, safe and reliable healthcare services.” 

It was deemed “partially compliant” in relation to how service providers “plan, organise and manage their workforce to achieve the service objectives for high quality, safe and reliable healthcare.” CUH was partially compliant in respect of “service users’ dignity, privacy and autonomy” and how they are “respected and promoted.” 

The CUH was judged “non-compliant” in relation to how “service providers protect service users from the risk of harm associated with the design and delivery of healthcare services.” 

A spokesperson for the Cork branch of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) said the working conditions for nurses are creating an impossible workload on its members.

“The sheer demand that is on nurses working in the CUH – it really can’t continue into 2023,” he said. “Our concern would be that those nurses will simply vote with their feet and leave. We are starting to see that trend. Younger nurses, who have only graduated a number of years ago – we are seeing more of them going to Australia, New Zealand, America, to take up opportunities.” 

The INMO said that other nurses close to retirement, will either take retirement at 60, or even take early retirement. 

“It comes down to capacity. There is a lack of capacity to meet demand, both in the CUH and also in the community as well, so that needs to improve.” 

The private beds that are available “need to utilised to the maximum extent,” to improve the patient flow out of the CUH. The managers of the CUH have to accept new patients and are in a difficult situation regarding capacity, he said. 

“More has to be done to keep staff, attract new staff, and obviously accommodation for nurses is a big issue. The government needs to get nurses into Cork, and to get them to stay.” 

The spokesperson also said the government need to start providing accommodation for new nurses or those from overseas and more needs to be done in terms of training new nurses and midwives in Ireland.

The HIQA report was conducted in June, traditionally a ‘quiet time’ for EDs, compared to winter. on Thursday, there were 85 people on trolleys in the CUH, “very close to breaking the record” of 88. 

“We could probably expect in the next couple of weeks that we will go above that. We were hitting traditional winter figures in the summer. Inevitably we will see the highest number of patients on trolleys in the CUH,” said the INMO spokesperson.