Nurses at the Accident & Emergency Department of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, say they will continue with their work-to-rule until the North Eastern Health Board provides five extra nurses.
The industrial action by the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO)started at 8 a.m. yesterday and will continue until "the health board makes an offer that is acceptable to the nurses".
In response, the board said it was extremely disappointed that notice was only given at 5 p.m. last Friday and appealed to the INO to defer its action and reconsider meeting with management to resolve the issue.
The mood of the nurses on the picket line yesterday was one of determination to continue the action as they say they are struggling to provide emergency care to 35,000 patients a year.
"When I finished work at 8 o'clock this morning there were seven patients who had been waiting on trolleys overnight for beds and one of them was a man who had been involved in a road traffic accident during which someone died; that was the situation in there before the work-to- rule began," said Ms Louise O'Hare, clinical nurse manager.
The nurses say the introduction by the board of a minor injuries unit away from the main A&E area will fragment their work and will have to be staffed by the existing 26-27 nurses.
"To work effectively we need 31-32 nurses as well as health care assistants who are available 24 hours a day. The one assistant at the moment finishes at 4 p.m. and the nurses are left answering the phone, emptying bedpans and moving patients as well as everything else."
Ms O'Hare also says the triage system, where nurses assess all patients and prioritise their needs, should be extended from eight hours to 24 hours a day with an appropriate increase in nurses. "It is a disgrace that a major regional trauma department does not have triage around the clock."
Ms Mary King, who has worked in A&E for the last 16 years, said the increase in population in the region has put huge pressures on the department and agrees the triage system is needed urgently in case a serious injury is missed.
The action coincided with the decision by the health board to send all trauma patients from Navan to the Drogheda hospital. In the last year it has also had to absorb trauma patients from Dundalk and Monaghan.