Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, is set to be hit by a 24 hour stoppage by nursing and other staff next Thursday.
It comes after two of the unions involved in next week’s planned work-to-rule by Health Service Executive (HSE) staff said their members would take additional action over scheduled agency hiring at the facility.
As talks aimed at averting the wider industrial action by more than 80,000 HSE staff got under way at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on Thursday morning, instructions sent by management at Our Lady of Lourdes are understood to have sparked the prospect of additional action at the hospital. It has more 300 beds and provides a substantial number of day care services which are likely to be impacted.
Ashley Connolly of Fórsa said the escalation was due to reports from the union’s members they were being instructed to continue to book agency staff across a wide range of grades and roles during the planned industrial action.
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She said the instruction demonstrated “a complete disregard” towards the planned industrial action, which the unions anticipate will cause substantial disruption to non-emergency services. Strike notice was served on management at the hospital on Thursday morning.
The five unions whose members are scheduled to start a work-to-rule on Monday have been attending talks with the HSE on Thursday in an effort to resolve the ongoing dispute over staffing levels across the health service.
The HSE also invited the Psychiatric Nurses’ Association, which embarked on its own work-to-rule on Wednesday, and other health sector unions including the Irish Medical Organisation and SIPTU to the meetings.
The HSE said it is “approaching this afternoon’s talks with unions at the WRC in a constructive spirit with a view to resolving this dispute in the public interest”.
