THE MAIN union representing nurses has accused the Government of prioritising budget cuts over patient care.
The Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation said its members had “never been more frustrated” at the failings of the system to listen to and act upon what they were saying. The body warned of increased mortality rates in Irish hospitals unless things change.
The comments were made yesterday as nurses and midwives from around the country gathered in Dublin for a conference on maintaining safe practice and patient care.
The union’s general secretary Liam Doran raised concerns about the further cuts which he worries could lead to ever-decreasing patient care.
“At the moment I don’t see any floor for the Irish health service, we still have the moratorium in place, we still have beds closed on an increasing basis, we still have community services being cut back and now we are told X hundreds of millions more has to come out for the fourth year in a row.
“All we are told is ‘you have to do more with even less next year’. That can’t happen.”
Guest speakers from the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust in England addressed the conference on the difficulties encountered there when finance was overprioritised by management.
An inquiry into the trust found that poor standards put patients at risk and that between 400 and 1,200 patients had died unnecessarily from 2005 to 2008.
Mike Gill, who became finance director and deputy chief executive of the trust after the inquiry, noted the essential role that frontline staff played in highlighting issues within health services.
Mr Gill condemned what he called a “culture of non-reporting” that he encountered in Mid Staffordshire and encouraged Irish nurses and midwives to continue to speak out about the issues they encountered at the frontline of the health service.
While Mr Gill has since left his post with the trust, the conference also heard from directors there who spoke about the lessons learned and how they were trying to, among other things, give a better voice to frontline staff about the problems in the health service.
The conference also heard from solicitor Ruth O’Connor on fitness-to-practise, and management consultant Miriam Wiltshire on leadership.
Before the event, the union released a statement saying the Irish health service was under “unbearable pressure” and had lost nearly 3,000 nurses and midwives in addition to the closure of 2,317 beds.
Mr Doran said the mistakes made in England and discussed at the conference were being made here. “Mid Staffordshire has said that nurses and midwives cannot be silent. They cannot be silenced by the system, they cannot be emasculated by the system, they have to have the courage, when they believe care is being compromised, to speak up and speak out.
“When that doesn’t happen, patient care and mortality rates actually increase and we have to listen and learn. We can’t pretend that we are not going to make the same mistakes as other health systems have when finance has been given priority.”