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THE IRISH HEALTH service is now critical, members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives (INMO) Oranisation say – and at their AGM today they will be discussing in detail what they believe needs to be done to fix it.
The 95th Annual Delegate Conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) will see more than 350 nurses and midwives gather in Kilkenny for the three-day event.
The organisation says that the conference will be “dominated by the realities facing members in the frontline as they strive to maintain safe care with reduced resources despite ever increasing demand for services”.
Concerns
Claire Mahon, INMO President, said:
The situation in the Irish health service is now critical and frequently unsafe. We must therefore intensify our advocacy for our patients and their welfare. We must stand up to those who would cut and dismantle our health service and highlight what we know to be wrong, otherwise patients will continue to suffer.
Since 2009, the health system has axed over 5,000 nursing and midwifery posts. To confront this issue, the INMO will launch its Safe Staffing Campaign.
This will involve the publication of a summary of all of the international research which has measured the harm done to patients as a result of poor staffing and the absence of registered nurses/midwives.
The INMO says this campaign will continue “until we secure minimum/mandatory staffing levels, determined through a systematic approach, across all areas of the health service”.
Delegates will call for the lifting of the moratorium on recruitment, and the retention of new graduates at the correct salary.
They also want the establishment of a ‘staff watch’ to monitor staffing levels/skill mix ratios.
At the conference, the members will call for additional bed capacity to tackle the ongoing overcrowding in Emergency Departments (ED).
They will also call for the further development of emergency paediatric services so that they are recognised as distinct services for children and staffed by qualified children’s nurses.
The INMO will release its trolley/ward watch figures for the first four months of this year, which it says “will confirm that hundreds of people, every day, continue to be treated on trolleys or on extra beds in overcrowded wards”.
Motions
Motions to be debated during the next three days include one calling on the organisation to begin a campaign in 2015 for the restoration of all rights, entitlements, benefits and the 37.5 hour working week, immediately after the Haddington Road Agreement expires.
On Friday, Minister for Health Dr James Reilly will address the conference at 12.30pm.
INMO General Secretary, Liam Doran said: “The growing body of academic research now supports the campaign’s message that the presence of adequate numbers of registered nurses and midwives improves the outcome for patients.”
He said that the government cannot ignore the international evidence. “It therefore needs to listen to, and accept, our call for safe staffing and stop promoting the myth of ‘doing more with less’.”
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It’s a stain on humanity that we don’t have a UN that’s fit for purpose .
How’s it not fit for purpose
@Gavin Lynam: he doesn’t really know, I suspect.
“Helping hand for Sudanese in Ireland”
We must open our homes. There will be millions displaced from this war.
Open Ireland up
@shuttleJohn: very bad trolling seriously
This war appears to be a proxy war (not like the Ukraine war) as the Wagner group is involved. Euronews says “According to a number of international investigations, the Wagner Group’s goal in Sudan is to provide Moscow access to resources, which, Russia then uses to finance the war in Ukraine. One of its main objectives is acquiring gold, as Sudan is the third largest producer of the mineral in Africa”
@Paul Furey: Maybe the west/left/powers that be are annoyed that it’s not the CIA or or some other pro west agency are not installed there. African countries do not have to select one of ‘ours’ just because we think we’re better. If it was a western funded group in Sudan instead of Wagner, they would no doubt also plunder and pillage as we’ve always done. Indeed, the ‘west’ have not done well by Africa in broad terms. Oh and to your point, the war in Ukraine is a proxy war from the west to the east all under the guise of ‘we care’.
@Chris Thaunton: Egypt is backing the military…Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are backing the paramilitaries. German companies have being supplying arms to the military side. Yes it is a proxy war…Just another conflict in Africa.. All because what lays under the ground that the people walk on.
The dark, scùmmy hand of the Kremlin all over this conflict. A stain on humanity.
800,000 fleeing, in a country of over 40 million and the two opposing sides have less than half a million soldiers between them. The millions that are surely on the side of democracy should get organised.
Peacefully headed our way, peacefully.
Fair enough! But some posters write too much and it gets in the way Imo.
have your say