The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) is to ballot its members working in emergency departments on Monday over possible industrial action.
They are seeking a mandate from its emergency department members for collective action up to and including a withdrawal of labour.
The ballot is taking place over what the union says are unsafe staffing levels and overcrowding in emergency departments.
The ballot, taking place in 29 locations around the country, will continue until Tuesday 24th November when votes will be counted. If industrial action is decided on, the union will give three weeks notice to the HSE.
INMO General-Secretary Liam Doran said the ballot was in response to “ desperation on behalf of patients that need proper care and desperation on behalf of nurses who have been dealing with overcrowding for years.”
“All promises made have not been delivered,” he said.
Minister for Health Leo Varadkar said he understood and shared the frustration that gave rise to the ballot but said industrial action would not get any patients off trolleys.
Speaking at a Food Safety Authority event in Dublin on Monday, Mr Varadkar said there would be negotiations and engagement between the INMO and the employer “to work out what additional things can be done, particularly in terms of additional staffing in emergency departments”.
“There are a number of issues that give rise to overcrowding and it’s not just about capacity. We have plenty of evidence of hospitals that have been given additional beds and it didn’t result in a decrease in overcrowding, unfortunately,” he said.
“There are a lot of factors at play. This year we will spend €700 million more on health than we did last year. We have more doctors working in our public health service than ever before and 500 more nurses on the payroll this year than this time last year. So there are more resources but we need to make sure that those additional resources paid for by the taxpayer result in better outcomes for patients.”
Mr Varadkar said he was always calling for more funding and it was part of his job as Minister for Health, but he said maybe more were needed.
“But I think people who think that just additional resources is going to solve any problem in the health service have consistently been proven wrong about that. I think Einstein’s definition of stupidity is to continue doing the same thing when it doesn’t work.”
“If we have 300-400 additional beds opened between now and January in addition to the 250 freed up by getting rid of the funding cap on the Fair Deal, we need to see that turning into results for patients,” he said.
The INMO executive council said for the 15th month in a row there was an increase in the level of overcrowding in emergency departments, with 7,971 admitted patients cared for on trolleys in October.
It said the ballot is “in protest at the persistent, and deepening, levels of overcrowding in ED departments across the country”.
It said in the first 10 months of this year almost 80,000 admitted patients, were on trolleys, which is the highest ever figure for the first 10 months of any year since the Trolley Watch survey began.
It also said there is a “complete failure of management” to address identified areas of concern in staffing, maintaining a safe work environment and having a senior clinical decision-maker in the department every day.