Nurses have 'gone beyond fearing they will lose public support', according to the new INO president, writes THERESA JUDGE.
NURSES AND midwives will have "no alternative" but to take industrial action if the Labour Court does not agree to a pay increase that would give them parity with other therapeutic grades, the new president of the Irish Nurses Organisation has said.
Sheila Dickson, who has been on the executive council of the union since 2004 and was elected president two weeks ago, says the achievement of such a pay award will be a priority for her presidency. Achieving such parity would represent a pay rise of some 15 per cent for INO members.
She says she believes there will be no alternative to industrial action given the history of the nurses' pay claim - on the first occasion they went to the Labour Court they were told to take their case to the benchmarking body deciding public sector pay awards.
"We were then told by the benchmarking body that our claim was outside its terms of reference, so somebody led us up the garden path," she says.
Dickson is angry that time was wasted. "We were not told that it was outside the terms of reference until the very end of the process - even when we made a presentation to the benchmarking body no one suggested to us then it was outside their terms of reference."
She says that, having pursued this pay claim for a number of years, nurses will not be fobbed off with talk of tighter economic times and the need for pay restraint.
She stresses the injustice of nurses and midwives - educated to degree level - starting on a salary of €6,000 a year less than "therapeutic" counterparts who have the same level of education.
It is particularly galling to nurses that people working as social care workers in the intellectual disability sector, some of whom may not be qualified, are on this higher rate of pay than their nursing colleagues. They were awarded a pay increase in 2001 which put them on this higher grade.
Dickson, who trained in Britain and worked there for 13 years, points out that the British government has recently given nurses parity of pay with therapeutic grades and says that she cannot understand why the Irish Government would refuse to do so.
"The bottom line for us is that all we are asking for is what we are due. We are not looking for a massive increase, just to be treated fairly and equitably, the same as other professionals. We are looking for the same deal as others that recognises the care we deliver and the expertise we have."
On the question of whether there is an appetite within the INO for industrial action, she says she will work hard to get a mandate from a minimum of 70 per cent of members for any action. "The appetite may not be there at present but when the time comes we will do battle. I would be looking for 70 per cent of members to agree to whatever road we take, as it's important to get unity. But we will only do it when we are prepared."
However, she suggests that the current raft of cutbacks has hardened nurses and midwives' attitudes and that they may have gone beyond fearing that they will lose public support.
"We value public support and it's very important to us but we are in the midst of the worst health cutbacks since the 1980s . . . and the public don't seem to have a real concern about the health service or only when it affects them individually."
Nurses and midwives, who are also consumers of health services, are determined to highlight how services are being eroded, she says.
Dickson, who works as a senior staff nurse at St Columbanus Home in Killarney, Co Kerry, says nurses who go on maternity leave are not being replaced. She points out that it takes a certain amount of time to wash, dress, feed and care for patients and, with fewer people to do the work, standards of care have to be affected.
"The most you will be able to provide is safe practice, not best practice, and that's not why I went into nursing - I want to be able to provide best practice."
She says that any service now that wants to replace a nurse or midwife going on maternity leave, for example, has to draw up a "business plan" explaining why that nurse is needed. This must then be sent to the HSE for approval. The failure to replace staff is resulting in ward closures and the cancellation of outpatient and elective procedures, she says.
Dickson says INO members are frustrated that the 2001 health strategy has not been implemented, in particular the development of primary care teams, which HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm had prioritised. "The HSE are telling us that primary care teams are up and running in certain areas, and I know they aren't because I know those areas."
One big achievement of last year's seven weeks of industrial action will be felt over coming weeks as nurses and midwives' working hours are reduced to 37.5 hours a week from June 1st. Dickson says she is confident that working hours will be reduced in all locations in June after recent meetings with health service managers.
An independent commission is examining the possibility of introducing a 35-hour week for nurses and midwives and is due to report later this year. Dickson says she will prioritise achieving this within her two-year term and stresses that nurses are willing to be flexible and innovative in developing health services.
She says the commission is looking at the issue of reducing the amount of time nurses spend doing non-nursing duties such as answering telephones.
During last year's industrial action, when nurses refused to answer telephones, nurses and midwives found they could provide better care to their patients, she says.
She says a lot of initiatives that have contributed to health service reform have come from nurses - she gives the examples of nurses taking blood samples and nurse-led medical assessment units which save people going through A&E departments.
The INO, she says, is still waiting for a response to a document it sent to the HSE and Department of Health last February suggesting possible "reforms and innovative ideas".
Dickson says that during her presidency she also wants to focus on the importance of retaining nurses after graduation. Training a nurse over four years costs the taxpayer €80,000 and she says the HSE's failure to give the most recent graduates a post-registration contract of even six months means many may go abroad.
"We are one of the few countries training enough nurses for ourselves. In 2006 all graduates were given two-year contracts but 2007 graduates were told they would have to see where vacancies arise.
"Meanwhile, Canada, the US and Australia are crying out for Irish-trained nurses - it is an awful waste. We don't value them enough in this country."