Emergency Departments vote overwhelmingly for strike action

Members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO), working in all of the country’s Emergency Departments, have voted, overwhelmingly, for a campaign of industrial action, including strike action.

The protest is over continuing overcrowding, inadequate staffing levels and the ongoing compromising of patient care.

In the recent ballot over 92% of members voted in favour of taking industrial action, involving the withdrawal of labour, saying they have simply had enough of broken promises.

In a statement, the INMO said it is, today, serving formal notice, on the HSE and all relevant health service employers, that the campaign of industrial action, which will involve strike action, will commence on Tuesday December 15.

In keeping with the agreed health service protocol the INMO is providing three weeks’ notice and will be indicating its availability to agree contingency measures.

However the INMO Executive Council has ratified a campaign as follows:

· this will be a national campaign involving all of the country’s Emergency Departments;

· each hospital to establish a strike committee immediately;

· strike action, will begin on Tuesday, 15th December 2015, and will initially involve action in a number of Emergency Departments on a simultaneous/rolling basis;

· further days of strike action will take place, involving remaining Emergency Departments, again on a simultaneous/rolling basis, in the New Year; and

· the campaign will, ultimately, involve a nationwide strike involving all of the country’s Emergency Departments.

The exact location and timing of the strike action, on the first day, will be advised to the HSE in our formal notice to them. However the strike action will involve all members, with the exception of a standby emergency response team, requiring the hospital, effectively, to go off emergency call.

This campaign of industrial action, is being taken as a last resort and after 10 years of discussions and broken promises. Our members are particularly frustrated at the daily acceptance, by those in authority, of ED overcrowding and, in many hospitals, ward overcrowding due to extra trolleys.

Against this background the campaign is seeking the following:

· safe, adequate and consistently available, staffing levels (including recruitment and retention initiatives), for all Emergency Departments;

· additional, separate nursing staff, to look after admitted patients who are on trolleys, thus ensuring the ED nursing staff can ensure safe practice in each Emergency Department;

· the designation of all Emergency Departments as specific places of employment, under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act, requiring regular inspections to ensure staff’s health and wellbeing; and

· proper, full and 24/7 implementation of agreed escalation policies to minimise overcrowding in both emergency departments and wards.