The emergency service put in place by striking nurses in the Midland Health Board region worked well yesterday, with no major problems during the first day of the national strike.
At 8 a.m. yesterday 15 nurses turned up for duty at the General Hospital in Portlaoise, where there are 138 beds. Normally, there would have been 40 nurses working.
The same pattern was repeated throughout the region, with 17 nurses on duty in Tullamore, where there are 174 beds, and where there would normally be 87 nurses on shift.
At Mullingar hospital, where there are 188 beds, there were 24 nurses on duty instead of the usual 69.
According to Ms Dympna Bracken, the Midland Health Board spokeswoman, there were no major problems at any of the acute hospitals. She said a baby had been born in Mullingar hospital some hours before the strike started. There were five induced births in the hospital yesterday.
However, normal services at the board's hospitals were severely disrupted. Out-patient services had been affected even before the strike began.
At Portlaoise Hospital, services were cancelled yesterday for two in-patients, five day cases and 188 people who were to have been treated in out-patient clinics.
In Tullamore 15 in-patients, 34 day patients and 64 out-patients were affected. In Mullingar 70 out-patients were affected, as well as services to one in-patient and nine day cases, according to figures issued by the health board.
Services were also severely disrupted at the nine other hospitals in the region which were picketed, including the two major mental hospitals in Mullingar and Portlaoise.