Limerick nurses stage stoppage

Nurses at the emergency department at the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick are to stage a four-hour work stoppage next Wednesday afternoon,.

The planned industrial action will take place between 1.00 p.m. and 5.00 p.m.

The move by members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is in protest at what it describes as "appalling conditions for patients and the clinical safety risks".

The INMO said that it will maintain a nursing presence in the hospital's emergency department over this four-hour period "to ensure all unforeseen developments can be responded to immediately".

The union said that the clinical safety risks and poor conditions for patients were caused, among other reasons, as a result of the Government's moratorium on the recruitment of registered nurses; the closure of beds in the region- 100 in the acute hospital services and approximately 80 in community hospitals and nursing units, the failure of hospital re-configuration plans in the mid west and budget cuts.

In a statement yesterday INMO industrial relations officer, Mary Fogarty said that the Minister for Health James Reilly should now intervene directly to ensure that safe, responsive and adequately staffed services were available for people in the mid west area.