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NURSES AND MIDWIVES will back their doctor colleagues when they undertake a 24-hour strike next week – but patients who need care will receive care.
That is the message from the General Secretary of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, Liam Doran, a day after it was announced that nurses will not carry out doctors’ work during the strike.
Doran told Morning Ireland today that all nurses and midwives will carry out the full range of their nursing and midwifery duties but they will not undertake the work that is normally done by the doctors in dispute.
Asked about the impact on patients, Doran said that nurses, midwives and doctors “have an exemplary record”, regardless of disputes with their employers.
“I think we all have an exemplary record of patient comes first,” said Doran.
He added that “all patients who need care will receive care”.
Impact
Doran did say however that the strike “will undoubtedly have an impact on what is known as planned work, routine admissions, outpatient appointments and so on… if action goes ahead they will be negatively affected”.
However, he said that “all patients who require care from nurses and midwives and indeed doctors I think will have it given because that’s what nurses midwives and doctors do”.
Regarding the issue of changing doctors’ hours to make them compliant to the EU Working Time Directive, Doran said “you’d be desperate at how long it has taken”.
He said that change “can’t happen just by looking at what doctors do or the hours they work, it has to happen in a way which involves nurses, consultants, midwives because everyone has to reconfigure their work”.
He added that “no one is speaking to us at the moment about how this might be handled, how this might be managed, what timeframe, what steps might be taken in an immediate sense to bring about compliance”.
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Reilly should just go!!
This has been a problem since Reilly was in med school – trying to scapegoat him is a gross oversimplification and a mistake.
Funny, I thought the fact that he’s a minister gave him the power to give the HSE a sufficient kick up the arse that they could have at least come up with proposals for resolving the problem since he was appointed.
There again, I could be wrong.
He should have fixed it, yes, but if we allow him to be the scapegoat then what happens? He’s fired and the government announce that they’ve gotten rid of the problem, nothing changes, and we have to wait another 20 years for momentum to build up again for another strike.
Liam Doran is only looking for exposure here this strike has nothing to do with his union members who will continue to do the work their employed to do strike or no strike.
Unless he asks his members to go out in support of the NCHD’s he should keep quite and clean up his own house first.
Cover will be equivalent to Sunday nchd cover . Elective theatre and clinics will most likely be cancelled but the care will be just as safe as it is every other weekend and overnight .
When is a strike not a strike ?
Dunno. I think it’d be a mistake for the doctors to leave a load of patients to die though.
No one will die. There will be consultants and non-union doctors still on duty. They’re not holding the HSE to ransom. They are just looking for a fair deal.
Dave, More chance of a patient dying because their doc is at the end of a 36 hour shift and can’t see straight. It’s like having a drunk taking care of you.
People won’t be dying because of the strike – staffing levels wi be at least as good as they are on such horrifically dangerous times recorded in history as “the weekend”.
have your say