A strike which has severely curtailed services at Waterford Regional Hospital escalated yesterday. Management accused picketers of intimidating patients and visitors and blocking essential supplies.
Union leaders responded to the claims by placing a 24-hour picket at the hospital, which is one of the largest in the State. If the dispute is not resolved before next week's nurses' strike, the hospital may be unable to function, the South Eastern Health Board said.
All non-emergency admissions and services, including most outpatient clinics, have been cancelled as a result of the strike by TEEU members, who claim supervisors are carrying out the work of plumbers and electricians after hours at weekends.
ATGWU members have refused to pass their colleagues' pickets, resulting in about 230 workers, including porters, caterers and cleaning staff, withdrawing their labour.
Vans carrying blood products, cancer drugs, food and theatre equipment were denied entry to the hospital yesterday, a health board spokeswoman said. It was difficult to estimate how long emergency services could continue to be provided.
The board's general hospitals programme manager, Mr Tom Beegan, said the situation would be "extremely grim" should the dispute overlap with a strike by nurses. The board is to decide today whether services can continue in such an eventuality.
"At the moment nursing staff, medical staff and administrative staff are doing the very best they can do to provide services to patients who are acutely ill," he said.
Mr Beegan repeated a claim that emergency contract cleaners brought in by the hospital on Tuesday were "run out of Waterford" as far as Tipperary, where he said their van was stoned. Gardai and the health board were investigating the matter.
He added that patients who had "managed to get into the hospital" were "very upset and traumatised by their experience of walking through the picket line".
Union leaders accused management of using such claims to divert attention from the issues at the centre of the dispute, which shows no sign of being resolved. Mr Walter Cullen, of the ATGWU, said pickets had been removed at 9.30 p.m. until yesterday but would now be maintained round the clock.
He said it was "totally untrue" that visitors and patients had been intimidated. "There was never any attempt by any of our members or the TEEU's members to prevent patients or visitors going in and out. There is no problem at all in relation to people going to the hospital."
He also denied that essential supplies were being blocked. "Management has been saying that but until now they could have brought in anything they liked after 9.30 at night," he said.
The Labour Relations Commission is understood to be prepared to facilitate talks between the two sides, but up to last night none had been arranged. The only outpatient services still operating at the hospital are the oncology (cancer), haematology and fracture clinics.
