Workers Solidarity Movement

As the number of patients reached a record high in recent days, healthcare workers in Emergency Departments (ED) in the country strive to maintain some acceptable standard of care delivery for patients. However nurses and doctors admit they are swamped and feel that current activity is unsustainable if the safety of patients is to be maintained. In some of the bigger centres in the country the huge backlog has created the situation where there is standing room only for ED patients. There is agreement among healthcare workers that the result of the over-crowding can only be increased morbidity and mortality for those requiring emergency treatment.

This is a version of the text of a leaflet distributed by the Save Loughlinstown A&E Campaign.
For a longer analysis of the health system from the WSM please see our pamhlet "Towards a Cure" :
 

St.Collumcilles 24-hour A&E in Loughlinstown due to close on 1st of November:
Don't let it happen!

Talks are underway at University Hospital Galway between the Health Service Executive (HSE) and union officials representing HSE staff in the west. The unions claim €90 million worth of cuts are being planned by the HSE, a claim which is denied by the Executive. IMPACT trade union spokesman Padraig Mulligan said there are very real fears that the HSE will cut jobs and reduce services.

In a timely statement on May 1st, nurses in Cork city's A & E service poured scorn on the HSE. Part of the reason why they did this was because of the ongoing situation at Cork's Mercy Hospital. In their statement, the nurses said that it was their "collective view that patient care is being compromised and that it is only a matter of time before there are serious issues and incidents ..." A month on from that statement there has been no resolution in the Cork area. The Workers Solidarity Movement look at the issues and how the impasse could be resolved.

The greedy consultants are taking advantage of the current crisis in the health system to help line their own pockets. They're not going on strike in solidarity with the nurses' justified industrial action. Instead, they've recognised the opportunity to make the health service unworkable and so increase the pressure on the Health Services Executive (HSE) and the Department of Health to make their new contracts even sweeter and grab some more cash in the process. They're delaying the much needed reforms in the health service and the increases in consultant numbers, that would benefit all of Irish society, for their own selfish reasons.

The nurses’ work-to-rule and their threat to escalate the action next week has been met with an outraged onslaught by Mary Harney and Bertie Ahern. The sight of a group of workers standing up and demanding their rights has become so unusual that it seems as if the government cannot believe the temerity of the nurses in doing just that.