Madam, - The vilification of nurses by the HSE - amply ventilated by certain elements of the right-wing press - has presented a distorted and dishonest picture of the current dispute. As a nurse, I find it utterly incomprehensible that this picture has gained such prominent traction with the public.
One case in point is the "Baby John Joe" story. It has been alleged that, as part of work-to-rule measures, nurses refused to look up the results of diagnostic tests at the request of the child's mother. It has also been claimed that the nurses "refused" to speak to the mother on the phone regarding test results and her child's condition. It is contended that these actions somehow breached the duty of care owed by the nurse to her patient.
As regards the first claim, it is not - nor has it ever been - within a nurse's remit (except in very special circumstances) to share test results with patients or their family. This is a medical issue: only doctors are qualified definitively to interpret test results of any kind, irrespective of whether the nurse has independently come to the same conclusion. The doctor is the only professional qualified to impart results and their implications to patients and their families.
The second claim is similarly groundless. Unless the conversation is in person, a nurse is not at liberty to divulge any details of a patient's condition, except in an emergency. Maintaining patient confidentiality is part of An Bord Altranais's nursing code of conduct, and breaches can lead to serious disciplinary action. So while it is common that nurses will discuss general details over the phone - such as whether a patient is stable or comfortable - specific details are forbidden.
We have, however, been treated to a manipulative and misleading story of how the INO has compromised patient care in pursuit of greater pay, and this has been the tenor of much of the media coverage. Nothing could be further from the truth: indeed, the INO has stressed, at great length, that the cessation of work involving phones or computers is not an all-out ban. If I decide that it would be within the essential interests of the patient or their family to make a phone call or use a computer, I can do so.
Has anyone yet cogently claimed that nurses have allowed - or would allow - an industrial dispute to get in the way of essential patient care? No. Have patients missed a single dose of chemotherapy since Monday? No. Has any nurse turned her back on a single person calling for help? No.
Against these facts, the ongoing derogation of the nurses and their unions can only appear as a baseless and cynical attack on one of the hardest-working professions in the State. That our claims for better pay and conditions are fully justified and deserved is less often heard, yet as early as 1980, the Labour Court recommended that "that because of the work they do and the stressful environment within which they work [ nurses] should be among the first to achieve a reduction in the working week".
The Government's feeble excuse that any pay deal outside the ambit of benchmarking will fatally cripple social partnership is untenable. Needless to say, the country was not brought to its knees when the management grades of the HSE were lavished with pay rises outside the "Sustaining Progress" agreements. That nurses are denied similar - not "special" - treatment is a bitter pill to swallow.
That the Government can abdicate responsibility for the deterioration of the health service, and lay the blame for current unrest at nurses' feet, is both intellectually dishonest and morally repugnant. In seeking to deflect the blame for 10 years of executive incompetence - and 27 years of government intransigence - the current administration has proved, once again, how thoroughly bankrupt it has become. - Yours, etc,
ANTHONY GALVIN, Registered General Nurse, St James's Hospital, Dublin 8.
A chara, - Not three months ago the public consensus was that the efforts of nurses was the one aspect of the health service which "could not be praised enough". I now find it odd that when the nurses go looking for the same 35-hour week as most of the rest of us and a well-deserved pay rise, they are portrayed by the same public and media as money-grabbers holding their patients to ransom. - Is mise,
TIMOTHY GUINEY, Dunluce Road, Clontarf, Dublin 3.