Targeted industrial action by members of the Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) will get under way in counties Mayo, Galway and Roscommon on Tuesday morning.
The union is involved in a dispute with the Health Service Executive (HSE) over staffing levels and has criticised what it says is a failure to hire all available psychiatric nursing graduates in particular regions of the country.
The three counties being impacted on Tuesday comprise one of those areas and the union says it has been left with no option but to press ahead with the action which had previously been postponed on a number of occasions to facilitate talks with management.
“The issue has not been resolved in, Mayo, Galway and Roscommon,” says PNA general secretary, Peter Hughes. “This is hugely disappointing given the progress achieved in the rest of the country over the past week. This flies in the face of a HSE assurance given in February that all graduate psychiatric nurses would be recruited into our services.
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Staff in the affected area will engage in a work to rule, declining to answer certain phone calls, attend non-mandatory training, facilitate groups outside of rostered hours or attend non-clinical meetings.
“We know from experience that the failure of the HSE to recruit these highly trained graduates into our mental health services means they will be lost to the private sector and attracted to posts abroad,” said Mr Hughes.
“At a time when our mental health services are struggling to cope with 700 vacancies and are being maintained through a reliance on agency staff and overtime it is astonishing that the HSE can contemplate allowing this to happen. ”
The union said the recruitment of graduate nurses was all the more important because about 500 existing staff are leaving the system each year due to retirement or other reasons.
“Despite intense engagement with the HSE the lack of urgency by the HSE in resolving graduate recruitment in the outstanding areas of dispute is inexcusable,” said Mr Hughes.
In a statement, the HSE confirmed the action would affect its West North West mental health area. “We are continuing to work to resolve the issues involved,” it said.
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