Nurses vote for campaign against health cutbacks

The Irish Nurses' Organisation today warned the Government its 28,000 members would lead an all-out public campaign of resistance to further cuts in the health service.

Delegates at the INO's annual conference in Galway this morning debated an emergency motion calling for the "reopening and restoration of all beds and services currently closed or curtailed".

In an increasingly heated debate, nurses criticised what they called the "critical situation" that existed in the health service.

They claimed the recent cutbacks had had a severe impact upon the quality of care for patients and the working environment for nurses and midwives.

The conference heard how patients routinely left on trolleys, cuts made in home help aid, nursing shortages and overcrowded hospitals have all contributed to the state of crisis.

The cutbacks, members claimed, run counter to promises made by the Government in its national health strategy which promised an extra 3,000 hospital beds nationwide.

One delegate told ireland.comhe was "sick and tired of cutbacks and the broken promises of this Government".

The motion, which was passed comfortably, vows to "expose each and every cut and its affect upon patient care and services".

It also contains a pledge to "lead a public campaign of resistance to further cuts in the public health service including mobilising and supporting patient-advocacy groups".

The Minister for Health, Mr Micheál Martin, is likely to receive a frosty welcome when he addresses the conference tomorrow in the wake of further hospital bed closures and service cuts in Dublin's five main teaching hospitals.

Dublin's academic teaching hospitals announced on Tuesday that they will close 250 beds as a result of an €87 million funding shortfall.

Mr Martin yesterday in the Dáil rejected opposition allegations of a crisis in the health service.

He said the word "crisis" had been used to describe the health service for the past five or six years. Mr Martin said he had been responsible for "record increases in health funding and in funding for acute hospitals across the country".

Last night at the opening of the conference INO general secretary Mr Liam Doran said the health service was "crumbling" and "in crisis". He said the latest cutbacks contravened of the new social partnership programme, Sustaining Progress.