INMO announce protest at CUH and balloting on industrial action

A protest is to be held at Cork University Hospital next week over ongoing staffing issues, with nurses and midwives to be balloted on industrial action.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation have announced that they intend to ballot their members from October 14 over the HSE’s recruitment moratorium, which they say has led to over 2,000 vacant, abolished posts in the health service nationally.

Trolley numbers have remained persistently high, with CUH having the second highest number of people on trolleys in the country almost every day this month, behind just University Hospital Limerick.

There were 62 people on trolleys in CUH on Thursday, and on average, there have been 60 people on trolleys in the hospital every day in September, with the number going over 80 on one occasion, according to the INMO daily trolley figures.

INMO Assistant Director of Industrial Relations, Cork’s Colm Porter, told The Echo that the protest and balloting were as a result of “the ongoing HSE recruitment moratorium introduced in 2023.

“The HSE had come out publicly to say the moratorium had been lifted across all grades, but this was followed quite quickly by the pay and numbers strategy that placed arbitrary caps on the number of staff that can be recruited into the public health system,” he said. 

“We know the damage moratoriums can do on staffing levels, they can take years to recover from them, and we’re getting daily representations from members working in understaffed conditions, which they say is having a detrimental impact on themselves and the parents they are caring for.

“The INMO made a decision that enough is enough - our members are not going to tolerate working in conditions that aren’t safe for them or patients.

INMO General Secretary Phil Ní Sheaghdha added that 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 along with other trade unions Fórsa and SIPTU are also to stage a series of lunchtime protests from next week, beginning with one at Cork University Hospital and another at HSE HQ in Dublin next Thursday October 3.

Data gathered by SIPTU revealed that the majority of its members said the embargo, and subsequent suppression of posts, were having a detrimental impact on staff and services, while 88% of Fórsa staff surveyed said there were vacancies in their departments.

Ms Ní Sheaghdha concluded, “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’.” 

A HSE spokesperson confirmed that there is now a new approved maximum Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) staff figure, but said, “The CEO of the HSE has welcomed this positive step.

“Each of the six HSE Health Regions and each national service has been provided with its own specified number of WTEs and can within that approved number, replace, recruit and prioritise. This provides greater oversight when responding to the needs of the population and prioritising appropriately.

“There will be 2,350 new jobs advertised for this year, and recruitment has started. Managers will have to control recruitment to stay in line with the approved maximum.” They added, “It is regrettable that the unions have given notice of protests and intention to ballot against the background of an additional €1.5bn for the health service in 2024, a planned €1.2bn increase in the health budget in 2025, and the certainty regarding future reliance on 2024 non-core funding.

“This combined with the Pay and Numbers Strategy, gives greater clarity and stability to health service funding, and allows for a period of confident planning and budgeting.”