Nursing staff to stage protest at Portiuncula

Nursing staff at Portiuncula Hospital will stage a lunch time protest in support of five INO senior nurse managers who remain out of work. But the HSE has said the action will put jobs and services at risk at Portiuncula Hospital, with the possibility of day surgery cancellations. Irish Nurses Organisation General Secretary Liam Doran will address the protest at 1pm today. The dispute, which involves five senior nurse managers at the hospital, has been ongoing since September of last year. The INO said the senior nurse managers raised a number of complaints at that time regarding the health and safety of staff and patients at the hospital and some of their conditions of employment. In a statement released yesterday (Tuesday) the INO said management had arranged for an assessment involving individual meetings with an outside consultant to be carried out without agreement or terms of reference agreed with the senior nurse managers. 'Each of the nurse managers sought written clarification on what was being assessed and terms of reference. None were forthcoming and, instead, they were instructed to attend. As a group they did attend an introductory meeting but were dissatisfied with the lack of clarity. They felt individual meetings with an outside party and without clear terms of reference were an attempt to penalise them for raising complaints,' the INO statement read. The first two scheduled for assessment refused to attend without terms of reference and they were suspended from work with full pay. The INO added that agreement was reached for a mediated return to work for the five senior nurses, who are currently on stress-related sick leave. 'This mediated return, and all other efforts to enable these managers return to normal working conditions, have been frustrated by an insistence by management that they will face disciplinary action as soon as they go back. As a direct result, they remain out of work. INO want the original complaints dealt with in an open and transparent fashion and a return to work while that is happening without further threat. All of the nurse managers have long and distinguished careers with Portiuncula over the last 20 years,' the statement from the union continued. Speaking yesterday morning, INO Industrial Relations Officer, Noreen Muldoon, said: 'The five INO nurse manager members involved in this dispute have, at all times, since the suspension in September 2008, co-operated with all reasonable suggestions to enable their return to their normal working conditions. However, these are being hampered and frustrated by management"s pre-conditions at every juncture.' 'INO members, in supporting their colleagues, are adamant that they should be returned to their normal posts without the pre-conditions proposed by management. At this point, it is important that all parties participate in the LRC process to resolve the dispute and the INO is now calling on the HSE West to sit around the table to do so. Unless this occurs, this dispute cannot be resolved,' she added. However, the HSE warned yesterday that services will be curtailed and jobs put at risk if the industrial action goes ahead. The HSE said the five assistant directors of nursing went on sick leave last year after they refuse to co-operate with an investigation into management difficulties at Portiuncula. Yesterday a spokesperson for the HSE West said: 'The only safe course of action would be to curtail services concentrating on day surgery first, placing temporary staff on protective notice and redeploying staff from areas where cutbacks had to be introduced. We hope that even at this late stage all INO members will think again and stand back from escalating a dispute which puts patients and jobs at risk. Nobody in the health service has, to the best of our knowledge, come across a situation where five such senior nurse managers, engaged in an internal row with their superiors, all went on sick leave.' The HSE added that Portiuncula Hospital has 206 beds, a staff of 690 and its 2008 budget amounted to €52 million. 'In mid 2008 the hospital became aware of working difficulties within the senior nursing management team. With the agreement of the INO, the HSE engaged an external consultant to assess the situation but the five assistant directors of nursing who are now on sick leave refused to co-operate despite being assured that each one of them and the INO would have sight of the consultant"s report when it was completed,' the HSE said in a statement. It added that it had done everything possible to resolve the dispute but its efforts had been frustrated by the refusal of the senior nurse managers to engage in the process, which had been sanctioned by their union. 'This does nothing for the professional reputation of Irish nursing. The bottom line is that everyone is subject to authority and the sooner this is accepted the better,' the HSE spokesperson added.