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Updated 8.45 am
THE IRISH NURSES AND Midwives Organisation (INMO) is to poll emergency department staff regarding possible industrial action in November if “significant progress” is not made in critical areas by health service management.
The announcement coincides with the news that staff at a mental health unit refused to work last Friday night until concerns for their own safety were addressed.
The four critical areas that the INMO want to see progress in are:
“Our emergency departments are beyond breaking point and they fear, constantly, for their patients and their own health and wellbeing,” said INMO general secretary Liam Doran.
The four critical areas identified must now be the subject of immediate, positive and constructive engagement.
Galway
Meanwhile, nurses at University Hospital Galway’s in-patient unit have raised concerns over inadequate staffing levels.
A row over this particular situation previously resulted in industrial action which was escalated to the Labour Relations Commission.
Staff have repeatedly said there are not enough nursing staff to provide the one-on-one nursing care required.
They say a number of patients have “highly challenging behaviour”.
Assaults
Between January and May this year staff were assaulted 36 times, nurses claimed.
Speaking about Friday’s incident, Galway East TD Colm Keaveney said that the situation “was left unresolved for several hours with daytime staff left working overtime as night-duty refused to come on”.
A slow response from management has been criticised.
“This is not the first time this has happened,” Keaveney said
It is one of several such staff-management stand offs in the last year.
He said much of the difficulties are a consequence of the closure of the 25-bed acute in-patient unit in St Brigid’s Hospital, Balllinasloe.
The Fianna Fáil mental health spokesperson called on Health Minister Leo Varadkar to “step aside from his role as a commentator on the health service and take personal responsibility for resolving this issue”.
The PNA’s Noel Giblin said that staff refused to work on Friday night until adequate staffing arrangements were put in place. Day staff worked overtime until this time.
“They couldn’t take up duty until it was made safe for them do so,” he explained.
Giblin added that a specialised unit at the hospital that would free up staff by allowing patients to safely remain unsupervised has yet to open.
Sinn Féin Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh described the situation as “absolute chaos”, adding that “there are very serious health and safety issues in the unit at present which must be addressed immediately”.
We shouldn’t need another tragedy in relation to this unit for the hospital group and the government to live up to their commitments.
The Department of Health and the HSE have been contacted for comment.
With reporting by Órla Ryan and Cianan Brennan
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That’s not a rifle image that’s a shotgun.
Do you really think the people in journal .ie would know what a rifel looks like ………..
Rifle
I think I will send a picture of a tank to the journal.ie ……… Tomorrow’s headlines ….. YELLOW SUBMARINE found in ireland …… Beatles no one suspects
hahahahah while it was the first thing i thought when i seen the picture i just know someone would say it !! still cant decide though are you just being pedantic or are you right to say it
yes but it’s an ASSAULT shotgun.
Well the way D.O.J and the gardai want to reform the gun laws you might be right!!!!
Haha that’s a shotgun lads, change it. Gun laws in this country are so stupid. Let the man have his rifle ffs.
Well it depends on the rifle. A sporting rifle can be legally held but nobody needs an AK47!
The problem is it wasn’t his riffle. This guy is part of a gang that was targeting elderly people living on their own, breaking into their homes and robbing them. The gun that was recovered belonged to a 77 year old man whom they tied up and beat. They stole the firearm from his home along with a sum of money.
From Donegal Daily
BREAKING NEWS: A MAN has been arrested and a firearm seized during a Garda operation this evening.
A Garda spokesman confirmed to Donegal Daily that the man arrested was detained after a search of a house in Ballyshannon.
The suspect is in his 40s.
A rifle was recovered during the search which came just days after a weapon was taken during an incident in Glenties where a 77-year-old man was battered and robbed by a vicious gang of burglars.
“A male aged in his 40s was arrested at the scene. He is currently detained under Section 30 of the Offences against the State Act, 1939, at Ballyshannon Garda Station,” said a spokesman.
James,
If this turns out to be true, it’s great news! That gang have been praying on elderly and vulnerable people in the north west for too long. I wonder was it anything with the €10,000 offered for information. Either way, lets hope these animals get sentences fitting their crimes!
Dr Rory used to shoot with the gentry
So he should have used it on them
Who says an AK47 can’t be a sporting rifle?
@Massimo The €10,000 might have something to do with it.
The above incident happened in Glenties, it used to be a Garda District Headquarters with a station that was manned 24/7
Shatter has since dissolved the district (Which was the largest in Co. Donegal) and split the policing of it between Ballyshannon and Milford. Both of which are nearly an hour away from Glenties.
It goes to show how crime levels will rise when cuts are implemented in Policing.
Tomorrows news: gardai to give back shotgun mistaken for rifle
Mistaken identity again
Shoot him with it.. Maybe he’ll think twice about having a gun in the first place!
I’d be getting my rifle images from another website if I were you.
Why didn’t we give that hellhole to the Brits when we were have that social clear out years ago. Donegal is a waste of space
“Youknowimright”, is your surname “Offmyfeckingtrolly” ?????
@youknowinright You have just shown how intellectually inferior you are to everyone else, probably on this planet.
That is the most ignorant, uninformed comment I have ever seen.
Everyone here is now a bit dumber for reading it.
Now go collect your dole and pick up your cans of Dutch Gold you waster.
have your say