Nurses plan protests over A&E

Nurses are planning a series of lunchtime protests later this month at hospitals around the country to highlight continued overcrowding in accident and emergency (A&E) units.

The plans were announced yesterday as the general secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation (INO), Mr Liam Doran, sought an urgent meeting with the Minister for Health, Ms Harney, to discuss the implementation of her 10-point plan for tackling overcrowding.

In his letter, Mr Doran said his organisation's executive council at its meeting on February 15th will consider proposals from its A&E section to sanction and co-ordinate a lunchtime protest outside all units which continue to be affected by severe overcrowding. The protest would take place on February 22nd.

Mr Doran said the INO also wanted to know the timeframe envisaged by Government for putting in place key elements of the Health Strategy and the Primary Care Strategy. The INO will seek details of:

• The locations and timescale for introduction of the additional 2,250 acute beds still required under the Health Strategy;

• The location and timescale for introduction of the additional 4,000 non-acute beds still outstanding under the terms of the Health Strategy;

• The location and timescale for the introduction of the network of primary care centres;

• The measures to deal with the anticipated exacerbation of the nursing shortage given that there will be no new graduates this year.

The INO said yesterday there were 239 patients on trolleys in hospital A&E units awaiting admission to acute beds. At Tallaght Hospital there were 34 patients, Beaumont, 25 and the Mater, 22.

Outside of Dublin there were 21 patients on trolleys awaiting admissions to beds at both Cork University Hospital and at Letterkenny General Hospital.