A £40,000 ADVERTISING campaign appealing for public support for the nurses almost had to be abandoned last week following a legal threat to the Irish Nurses Organisation.
The billboard campaign, which is to begin at 100 sites throughout the Republic today, features two nurses tending to an elderly male patient.
The caption reads: "Under Stress. Underpaid. Undervalued. Nurses. They've cared for us. Let's care for them."
Unfortunately for the INO, two Dublin women cared enough to call into the union's offices last week with unwelcome news. The man on the bed was their father, they said, and he had died in St James's Hospital six months earlier.
The news caused panic in INO headquarters. The posters were already printed. However, after a quick call to the union's public relations adviser, Mr Pat Montague, it was established that the photograph was taken in the Meath Hospital.
Undeterred, the women sent in their solicitor the following day. He threatened to sue the INO and St James's. "He said it was definitely their father and he was definitely dead," INO general secretary Mr P.J. Madden said.
A flurry off phone calls ensued, before it was finally established that, yes, the photograph was taken in the Meath and, yes, the patient was fine. "It gave us an idea of how things can get confused in a crisis," a relieved Mr Madden said.