Psychiatric nurses are the latest group of healthcare workers to serve notice of their intention to take industrial action over staffing levels in the HSE.
The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) on Tuesday said its members would begin a work to rule from March 26th.
The announcement adds to the already substantial potential for widespread disruption to medical services across the State after unions including Fórsa, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and Unite said they take similar action at the end of the month.
Unlike the other unions, the PNA is not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, meaning it is not part of the co-ordinated action being organised by the group of unions operating within the health service.
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Like the others, however, the PNA is protesting the implementation of the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) Pay and Numbers Strategy and, in particular, the fact that it led to about 3,000 jobs vacant on December 31st being “suppressed” or ceasing to exist.
The PNA says the move hit some 700 psychiatric nursing roles and that services and its members have been adversely impacted since, with many functions being carried out by existing staff working additional hours or by agency workers.
“The current level of staffing shortages has left services hugely reliant on overtime and agency to maintain basic services and is severely impacting on service development, which is contrary to Sharing the Vision, the Government’s mental health strategy,” said PNA general secretary Peter Hughes.
“We are extremely concerned that continued adherence to the Pay and Numbers Strategy, incorporating a huge reduction in staffing numbers, will result in the closure of Adult Mental Health Services and Camhs services and severely curtail community services.”
The union says many services have vacancy levels of 20 to 30 per cent and this is resulting in existing staff becoming “burned out, frustrated, and fed up with continuously holding services together with minimal resources”.
The PNA has been in dispute with the HSE for several months over the staffing issue and says that while some progress has been made in talks, the officials they have dealt with say they are not in a position to respond positively to its demands. These include that nursing posts be exempted from the Pay and Numbers Strategy and that all vacancies in Camhs services be filled.
Speaking on Monday, HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster acknowledged that 3,000 posts had been lost with the introduction of the Pay and Numbers Strategy. However, he said 4,000 others had become properly funded during the process.
He also said the number of people employed by the HSE had grown very substantially since 2020 and that even last year, when a recruitment freeze was in effect for a significant period and the Pay and Numbers Strategy was in place, an additional 900 nurses were recruited.
