Threatened nurses strike

As a matter of interest how many of your family are working full time in nursing now?

Re: retirement age being raised:I don't believe this to be useful - nurses have to conduct manual work, lifting patients etc as part of their nursing duties, I would not want my mother, a former nurse having to do this at 67.

Also i don't think any nurse would object to clocking in etc or pensions based on time worked because most nurses must stay back and give reports to those coming on in their own time i.e - they get paid till 8pm but must handover to night shift who start at 8pm.... so if they got paid for the time they are on the job then there would be no problem!

Real nurses are leaving the profession and alienating them further will only shush them out the door. They are not at fault for wanting the same perks as other health care professionals seem to get and not wanting to stay the walkover profession they have been in the past.
No, i am not a nurse but have lived with them, live with them coming home drained or maybe crying due to "getting too personal" - it turned me right off but my sisters and friends love the work and hate the red tape crap which has crept into it.Its a case of I wouldn't do their job, but i would want one of them minding me (as opposed to a temp who is not interested in getting to know the ward or patients or someone whose english I cannot understand) if i was in hospital - so as a result i support what they want up to a point, anything to keep the really good nurses there.
 
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nelly said:
As a matter of interest how many of your family are working full time in nursing now?
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Of the 13 I mentioned, 11 are still nurses and indeed one of my cousins has put nursing in DCU as her top CAO choice this year. Additionally one of my aunts has worked all her life in the clerical end of the health board and also my own mother spent a number of years in the catering end of a local hospital.
 
so i suppose the next question is do they think they have a good deal now working in the system as it is? somehow I doubt it,
 
It was not a conscious decision or attack I just noted that the previous poster stated his family's involvement in the sector in an attempt (as I read it) to imply how his views are based on information & opinion from "the inside" and to add weight to his arguments.

my question was only part of a longer answer which was ignored.

My apologies if i have delved too deep.
 
nelly said:
the previous poster stated his family's involvement in the sector in an attempt (as I read it) to imply how his views are based on information & opinion from "the inside"
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Actually my family would probably completely disagree with me, my views are more "despite" strong family tradition rather than because!
 
It looks like the nurses are at it again in Cork. They say it's all about patient care and staffing levels... but for three thousand Euro it will all go away.
 
probably needs a new thread but i suspect they have found something to beat Mary H with, the promised staff were not recruited for the opening last saturday seems fair enough - but i find the project management of the closure of 3 hospitals and opening of the new main one all at 12 noon as bizarre, are the machines all moved over? sure the staff are still only getting inductions into the new workplace this week what would they have done if it was open for business? seems mad to me.

I know some of the staff are pee'd off by the parking charges (and its limited at best) and being offered park and ride facilities at the new hospital. welcome to the reality of rubbish planning.
 
Why would it take more than 12 months?
We moved a staff of 85 and millions of Euro worth of specialised equipment that had to be installed on special foundations last year. The whole move took one weekend.
I know hospitals are bigger and things move more slowly in the public sector but how would it take more than a year to move to the new hospital?
The parking issue seems reasonable, while no one has a right to parking if they had free parking in the old hospitals they should continue to get it.

The read issue, as usual, is money. The labour court said they should get a one off extra day annual leave for the move. The HSE and the government agreed to this but the INO want between three and five thousand euro for the disruption of moving to a brand new state of the art hospital. They say it’s about staffing levels and patient care but, as usual, this is a misrepresentation of their true position since they well move if Mary Harney stuffs a few thousand euro into their pockets.
Once again nurses are too dishonest to just come out with the facts; they see an opportunity to screw a few bob out of the state and they are going for it.
 

if what you say is true then i agree it does seem like plain greed to me.

Looking at it i thought it was not unreasonable to have the 3 hospitals move over in a staggered manner, which was not what seems to have heppened.
 
nelly said:
Looking at it i thought it was not unreasonable to have the 3 hospitals move over in a staggered manner, which was not what seems to have happened.
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If they are all moving on the same day/week then I agree but I would assume that it will take some time to get fully operational after this official opening date.
Don't get me wrong, the Nurses are entitled to look for any money they want. It's the way they misrepresent their motives that gets to me.
 
Hi Purple - Can you confirm your source or the basis for your claim that it is all about money? I recall a newspaper article from a couple of weeks ago (Irish Times?) which outlined serious concerns in the difference in staffing levels - it did seem like a huge drop compared to the original staffing level of the 3 hospitals.
 
I came to that conclusion when the INO said they would not go on strike if they were paid off.
 
I spoke to a Cork based nurse who would be affected by the move - and she also stated that it was a question of money.
Her reason was
"Gees - there are some people working in the same place for ten, fifteen years and they have to get something for moving".
 
Purple said:
I came to that conclusion when the INO said they would not go on strike if they were paid off.
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Seriously, where and when did the INO say this? Your statements are fairly contraditory to their public statements, e.g.

From
From


From
“The HSE went to the Labour Court and said they have 375 staff. On Friday they admitted they only had 315 staff, and that was the sole reason why our members rejected it.”
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The Irish Times today reported that the HSE had plans to build up from 315 to 375 over time, but as midwifery is a demand-led service, the good ladies of Cork are still going to be arriving with babies ready to be delivered.
 
Widgets and babies - not comparable I do agree. Perhaps the opening of a new "state of the art" maternity hospital is being seen as an opportunity for economy, in view of the comment below which was made by Minister Harney last January; she generally get her facts right even if they're not welcome. The nation is calling for better value for taxpayers' money is it not?
Posted 18.01.2007
According to Minister Mary Harney on Q's & A's this week, we have more nurses per 100,000 population in Ireland than any country in Europe.
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Is it not likely that the amaglamation of three old hospitals and their replacement by a newly designed modern one could be expected to yield efficiencies at all staffing levels?

There are many areas of the health services crying out for additional services for sick people and where saved funding could be directed. After all, the majority of patients in maternity hospitals are not sick per se or in need of intensive nursing care. Indeed, a significant number of Midwives state that most babies should be born at home, saying "childbirth is a natural process". I take a different view but Nurses and Midwives can't have it both ways.

....nursing staff rejected offers to reduce the number of patients to 128, just four more than current facilities at Erinville, St Finbarr's and Bons Secours hospitals.
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One of the basic problems of the health service is more and more staff deal with less and less patients.

Most of the reasons for this are understandable - more complex treatments, a single big ward is easily visually monitored by a couple nurses whereas several smaller ones won't be etc..

Obviously (anyone hear of nurse redunancies?) all the health staff are being moved from the other hospitals and also new ones are being added so there is no drop in staffing levels. What the nurses want is to deal with less patients per nurse than they do now (partially due to the new smaller ward layout).

I believe the HSE made a clumsy mistake in revealing the money element to what the nurses want - then the nurses were forced to focus on the much harder to resolve elements rather than appear greedy. It's easier to pay a couple million for relocation than to try hire nurses that don't exist.

I didn't think the relocation expense claim was rediculous, being asked to work in the other side of Cork city could add an hour per day commute time, or require a car to be bought. Nurses are in high demand - a private sector worker in similar demand if asked to do the same move might well ask for some compensation.
 
Is this feasible though? surely there is less work involved?

Just an asside - did the clerical, non nursing/medical staff get any extra to move to the new site?
the transport issue is a non-starter in my opinion.
 
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