The effect of the dispute on the ground
Mater hospital
Patients at the Mater hospital said it was business as usual despite the work-to-rule. At lunchtime yesterday there was just a dozen patients in the hospital's A&E unit, one of the busiest in the State.
Outpatients at the hospital expressed satisfaction at the level of service, which they said was normal despite the industrial action. Aisling Bodkin, who attended the dermatology unit, said: "Everything was fine. I was surprised by it because I was really worried going in today. I had to wait for a half-an-hour, which is nothing out of the ordinary".
Bernadette McElroy said the service had actually improved because many patients had stayed away from the hospital.
It was a similar experience for John McLoughlin, who had tests for diabetes: "I thought I was going to be in there half the day, but I was in and out in a flash," he said. - Ronan McGreevy
Mullingar
A mother-of-nine confronted the general secretary of the main nursing union on a radio station yesterday after a nurse refused to make a phone call to get the results of tests carried out on her infant son.
Ann Burke (40) said a nurse at the Midlands Regional Hospital in Mullingar told her that she wouldn't ring another hospital to get results for her eight-week-old son, John-Joe, because of the work-to-rule.
Ms Burke, from Mullingar, said she wanted to find out if John-Joe had the food-poisoning bug campylobacter. "I needed to know because if this is a 48-hour gastroenteritis bug that many of children get, we should be starving him, but with the campylobacter you feed and feed as much as you can to flush the bug out of the system."
Ms Burke confronted INO general secretary Liam Doran on Newstalk's Lunchtime with Éamon Keane programme. Mr Doran said, as a parent, he sympathised with her, but he blamed the Health Service Executive (HSE) who he said had known for 32 days that nurses would start a work-to-rule and had failed to make any contingency to cover the fact that nurses would not be making or answering phone calls. He also said that nurses had the discretion to make essential calls if they were necessary in an emergency. ... - Ronan McGreevy
Cork
Support for the nurses action was divided at Cork University Hospital. Patient Joe Murphy from Leitrim Street, Cork, who was admitted last month after suffering a stroke, said he fully supported the nurses, saying their claims for improved pay and conditions were perfectly legitimate.
However, John O'Hara from Togher described the action as a "total disgrace". ... Olivia Kelleher
Galway
A spokeswoman for the HSE West said all scheduled appointments had so far gone ahead as planned. However, it predicts that already busy A&E departments will become congested if bed managers do not attend meetings. ... - Denise McNamara
Waterford
Most relatives of patients in Waterford Regional Hospital interviewed yesterday said inpatient services were largely unaffected. Nurses at the 500-bed hospital, which has about 1,700 workers, did not answer phones except in emergencies. A ban on bed management duties and administrative tasks was also implemented.
John Michael (40), New Ross, said: "I think the dispute will definitely affect the care provided and I hope the HSE will sort it out very soon. Nurses deserve better working conditions; they have a very tough job to do," he said. ... - Ciarán Murphy